What lurks out there in the fog?
What was that eerie sound in the dead of night?
What flitted by at the end of the street, just beyond the farthest
street lamp?
From earliest times, tales of the restless dead and their fellow
travelers have terrified mankind. Whether around a remote campfire or in
the middle of a bustling city, the unquiet spirits and attendant
creatures that have tormented humanity since the prehistoric darkness
haven't gone away - they still have the power to strike fear in our
hearts.
Encyclopedia of the Undead traces those shadowy entities - vampires,
werewolves, ghouls and monsters - that lurk just outside the range of
human vision and inhabit our most frightening tales. Drawing on a wide
range of beliefs and literature, it traces these horrors from their
earliest recorded inceptions and charts their impact upon the human
psyche. In this book, history and terror mix to create the things that
lurk in the darkest corners of our minds.
You'll find detailed descriptions of terrors from all over the world -
from the mist-shrouded mountains of Eastern Europe to the sweltering
jungles of the Caribbean islands, from the dark, stone-lined tombs of
the uncoffined dead beneath the remote New England hills to the dark
magics that lurk beneath the thriving, colorful surface of a city like
New Orleans. In addition to the more conventional creatures,
Encyclopedia of the Undead also details some of the more obscure Things
that gnaw at the edges of men's minds - Incubi and Succubi, the Mara,
and the dark legends that have influenced writers from Sheridan Le Fanu
to H.P. Lovecraft.
This is a book for all those who are interested in the darker side of
the human mind - the side that examines and even embraces those beliefs
and imaginings that form the basis of our most archetypical fears. This
is the book for those brave enough to plumb the depths of our worst
nightmares!
