| The Essential Guide to Werewolf Literature | ||||||||
| Brian J. Frost | ||||||||
| Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 364 pages | ||||||||
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A review by Georges T. Dodds
Frost's extensive and seemingly exhaustive survey of werewolf literature begins with a short introduction to werewolves, a survey of
reference works (i.e. non-fiction) on werewolves themselves, a chapter on werewolf fiction from its origins to the early 20th
century, an extensive survey of werewolf tales in the pulps, and several chapters on recent werewolf literature. Frost glosses over the
16th and 17th treatises on werewolves in a couple of pages, so if your interest is in this area you best refer to
Montague Summers' The Werewolf,
but bring along a good knowledge of Greek, Latin, and French.
The Essential Guide to Werewolf Literature is a reworking of the running introduction (it continued in parts between reprinted
stories) of Frost's 1973 reprint
anthology Book of the Werewolf -- an excellent collection, by the way. In this
earlier attempt at an overview of werewolf literature. Frost was much more forceful about stating what, in his opinion, was good and what
wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. Similarly, Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould's
The Book of Werewolves (1865)
expressed a strongly held opinion that werewolves were people with mental disorders, not tools of Satan, whereas Rev. Montague Summers'
in his The Werewolf (1933) clearly took a theological stand that werewolves existed and were a personification of Christian
evil. One can disagree with Baring-Gould or Summers' points of view, but one must admire them for their passion. The current work,
while it does rank the quality of the works it surveys, seems much more equitable and tactful than the earlier version. This left me
a bit disappointed -- the lack of bias in preparing such a work is commendable, but leaves one more with an annotated list than an a
critical -- if biased -- review of the genre.
The Essential Guide to Werewolf Literature is clearly laid out,
with a large, easy-to-read typeface, an extensive bibliography and index, and a survey of werewolves in
the pulps that was clearly lacking. However, in each section, the books and stories which are relegated to a mere mention are simply
cited one after the other, frequently over more than one page. Here it might have been more efficient for the reader if these had
been summarized in a table with title, author and publisher. Also, it might have been nice to see pictures of the
covers (or cover pages) of some of the works mentioned, though this is a decorative issue rather than one of substance.
Nonetheless, Frost's The Essential Guide to Werewolf Literature remains the best thing out there if you want to explore
modern werewolf literature. It is even-handed, gives good coverage to recent works, and avoids the abstruseness of some
earlier works. So don't wait for the moon to be full, put on your wolf-pelt and lope out to your local bookstore for a copy.
Georges Dodds is a research scientist in vegetable crop physiology, who for close to 25 years has read and collected close to 2000 titles of predominantly pre-1950 science-fiction and fantasy, both in English and French. He writes columns on early imaginative literature for WARP, the newsletter/fanzine of the Montreal Science Fiction and Fantasy Association and maintains a site reflecting his tastes in imaginative literature. |
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