Poe

Soooo, I found this creepy vampire cult website, does this fulfill part of my assignment? They even have their own vampire bible! http://www.vampiretemple.com/

In Edgar Allen Poe's Ligeia, She is described to be lovely beyond all others, sporting marble skin and glossy raven locks that have a strangeness about them, pure black eyes too large for a human. When the man talks about her, he says her eyes contain something found only in the eyes of the aged, or those who have lived a long time. Ligeia was weathly beyond normal mortals and possessed an almost unearthly nature before she died. At the end of the story, from what I gathered(it was kinda confusing), Ligeia kills the mans new wife Rowena, and comes back to life.

In The Oval Portrait, In a dark area of a room, there hangs a picture in an oval frame of a girl almost a woman, 'a maiden of rarest beauty'. This one was equally confusing, maybe its the language barrier, but I guess that whole time the painter was painting his beautiful bride, she was dead.

In The Fall of the House of the Usher, Roderick Usher is said to have a very ancient family that has been the object of fine works of art. When the narrator meets Usher face to face, he speaks about Usher's cadaverous complexion and perfect facial features. Usher speaks of acuteness of his senses, how all flowers smelled opressive to him, and how even the faintest of light tortured his eyes. Both Roderick and his dececed sister Madeline suffer from a strange illness that baffles their doctors and are the cause of their strange complexions. When looking upon Lady Madeline's corpse, they note that the mysterious illness had entombed her forever in her youth. At the end, while reading a book to Usher, the narrator hears noises that match up to the story he is reading. It turns out that Lady Madeline was not dead and was making noises as she broke free of her tomb, looking for her twin brother, Usher.

First Assignment

I'm not really sure what all I know about Vampires. First off, there's the mainstream vampires, you know, holy water, crosses, and stakes. Then there's more modern, I guess, vampires like in Twilight. (Ooh...sparkly vampires says the Magpie...heheheh..) I've seen vampires on opposite sides of the intelligence scale, from mindless and primitive monsters to sexy and sophisticated.

There is a book that I sometimes check out at the library...you know...one of those old dusty books in the back...you're sure you're the only one who ever checks it out...called "The Legends of Blood".
The Legends of Blood is all about Vampire in history, poetry, art, etc. It come's complete with how vampires came all the way up to their habits and real life encounters. I really do like this book, and one of the best parts is you don't have to read it in order. If you don't want to read about the history of vampires, you can skip right on ahead to another section.

I have never read any of her books, but I have heard some amazing things about Anne Rice's books and look forwards to reading them. I have never even heard of The Historian before.