The Essential Guide to Werewolf Literature (A Ray and Pat Browne Book) Paperback – October 15, 2003

This is literally my favorite werewolf book.Out of every single one I have ever bought, this is the one that I always go to. It has really good stories about "real life werewolves" and has really great information.

a book that has many complicaions of werewolves storys and thier origin. Very intresting book if you like or intrested in lychens

While the book is a great resource in itself for listing Werewolves in Non-Fiction and Fiction before 2000, there are still some gaps in the work, such as:During the section on the 1950’s: Brain completely forgets J. R. R. Tolkien’s fellow contemporary writer C. S. Lewis, who had a werewolf feature in the Chronicles of Narnia books: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950) and Prince Caspian (1951).Also missing is “Here, Putzi!” by L. Sprague DeCamp and Fletcher Pratt from “Tales from Gavagan’s Bar” (Barin, 1953).Missing in the children’s section is “The Sixty-two Curses of Caliph Arenschadd” by Patricia C. Wrede (1993) from “A Wizard’s Dozen” edited by Michael Stearns (Scholastic, 1993), October Moon by Michael Scott (Scholastic, 1995) and Graveyard School: Little Pet Werewolf by Tom B. Stone (Skylark, 1995).The Immortals series by Tamora Pierce has the main character able to change into a wolf in Wolf-Speaker (Random House, 1997) and a hyena in Emperor Mage (Random House, 1997). I’m sure there’s even more, as even the Harry Potter series is not listed/discussed in the book.“Feet of Clay” by Terry Pratchett is also set in Discworld, so that means that the werewolf character is reoccurring over various novels by the author.Also odd that The Werewolf Book: The Encyclopedia of Shapeshifting Beings by Brad Steiger is cited in the Bibliography, but not discussed in the survey of reference works.The concerning knowledge displayed over the Werewolf: the Apocalypse game setting and just gaming fiction in general comes off as Brian J. Frost not having a firm grasp on the subject which leads to missing a ton of books from this subject and era. A great example is Netherworld by Richard Lee Byers, while a Vampire: The Masquerade novel, it still features werewolves heavily in the plot.I highly suggest that if Brian were to ever make a second edition to The Essential Guide to Werewolf Literature that he take the Werewolf: the Apocalypse books he’s already talked about and combine the ones he missed into a full chapter on just “Gaming Fiction/RPGs”. Maybe get help from someone more knowledgeable on the subject matter as well.He can round up Choose Your Own Adventure books to put into this section, bring up how works by Poul Anderson and Tolkien inspired Dungeons & Dragons, talk about Andre Norton starting the concept of RPG novels with Quag Keep for Dungeons & Dragons in 1978, go over various RPG novels and anthologies that have werewolves in them, explain various game settings for each setting that has books, and list RPG sourcebooks near the very end.Also considering the 2000’s and 2010’s, the children, young adult and romance sections would have to be vastly expanded into larger chapters. The anthology section should add “Collected Works” for certain authors that have werewolf short stories or a short story in them. Expand the Non-Fiction section for Mythology, Folklore, Occult and New Age books. Comics and Graphic Novels might have to be discussed in their own chapter. Maybe a whole section on both Non-Fiction and Fiction over other non-wolf animal shapeshifters. Just shooting some ideas out here.I also had an issue over Brian listing Hair of the Dog by Brett Davis simply as, “the efforts of a group of scientists to find a cure for lycanthropy” and leaving it just at that. Rather the book is actually a social commentary of non-profit charity groups that do not advocate for people with disabilities and cause way more harm then help. The novel now seems way ahead of it’s time and I would love to see an adaption in movie format as: Lycanthropy Howls does not howl for me.

Anyone who wishes to learn more about werewolves in literature should invest in this book. The writing style is easy to enjoy, and the list is comprehensive. I would thoroughly recommend to students and enthusiasts of werewolf stories.

This book grabbed me and I could not put it down. It covers a variety of werewolf literature that there could ever be. It even discusses short stories and the interest in werewolves from different eras. This must be updated because more werewolf books will come in a while.