Horrors

Gr 7 Up—This unusual book blends fiction and nonfiction and is illustrated with detailed and terrifying pen-and-ink drawings. It begins with the story of how Lord Byron challenged his friends Percy Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft (Shelley's future wife), Claire Claremont, and John Polidori to write ghost stories. Several of their creations, including Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Polidori's The Vampyre, became famous. Wood summarizes these tales and discusses how each person who created a story that night seemed have a cursed existence afterward. He then tells the story of "Beowulf," which seems out of place because an examination of the story's creator is impossible. Wood makes no mention of the fact that the author is unknown, that it is an epic poem, or that it is centuries old. He then goes on to discuss the works of writers such as Edgar Allan Poe and Bram Stoker. He also mentions Matthew Lewis's The Monk, but it is unclear what this story is about because there is a bewildering illustration but no plot summary. Wood concludes by introducing the narrator as the "Greatest Storyteller of Horror," who claims to have inspired authors throughout history.—Andrea Lipinski, New York Public Library