HIGHLIGHTS: Fourteen lycanthropic classics including "Niceros's Story" by Petronius Arbiter, "Arthur and Gorgalon"
by Anonymous, "The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains" by Frederick Marryat, "Olalla" by Robert Louis Stevenson, "The
Other Side" by Count Stenbock, "Dracula's Guest" by Bram Stoker, "Eyes of teh Panther" by Ambrose Bierce, "The Mark
of teh beast" by Rudyard Kipling, "On teh Northern Ice" by Elia W. Peattie, "The Werewolf" by Clemence Housman, "The 
Werwolves" by Henry Beaugrand, "The Werewolf" by Eugene Field, the novella "Lady Into Fox" by David Garnett and "The 
Drone" by A. Merritt. "The Werewolf in Literature" by the editor follows. Each story is introduced by G. W. Thomas. 

The first in a trilogy of volumes.

INTRODUCTION

IN The Devil's Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce gives his definition:

"WEREWOLF, n. A wolf that was once, or is sometimes, a man. All werewolves are of evil disposition, having assumed a bestial form to gratify a bestial appetite, but some, transformed by sorcery, are as humane and is consistent with an acquired taste for human flesh. Some Bavarian peasants having caught a wolf one evening, tied it to a post by the tail and went to bed. The next morning nothing was there! Greatly perplexed, they consulted the local priest, who told them that their captive was undoubtedly a werewolf and had resumed its human form during the night. "The next time that you take a wolf," the good man said, "see that you chain it by the leg, and in the morning you will find a Lutheran."

Of course, Mr. Bierce is having some fun with us, but he still pin-points the greatest appeal of the werewolf story, the transformation. The creature that is a man sometimes, walking among us, but also a terrible man-eater when the moon is full.

This collection brings together many of the shorter classics of the werewolf genre, some with real monsters, and others using the lycanthrope motif for other purposes like "The Other Side: A Breton Legend" or "Lady Into Fox". We have culled these highlights from the oldest stories, those as old as Petronius in ancient times, or the anonymous Arthurian legend of "Arthur and Gorlagon". More modern tales like "The Werewolf" by Clemence Housman are both stories of werewolves and religious tracts. This wide time frame matters little since the werewolf is a universal creature, as terrible to the Romans of the First Millennium as they are at the end of the second.

I've ended this book with my overview of the literary werewolf, which explores the many tales of the werewolf clan in greater depth. I hope this will provide a place for werewolf readers to find more treasures. The next volume, When the Wolfsbane Blooms, offers up some real treasures too, including stories by Guy de Maupassant, George MacDonald, Elliott O'Donnell, Algernon Blackwood, Sutherland Menzies and many others.

G. W. Thomas