Books by Christopher Frayling

A century of classic vampire cinema--in posters, stills and artwork--from Murnau to True Blood and beyondThis visual feast celebrates classic vampire cinema--mainstream and niche--through the many colorful ways in which the key films have been marketed and consumed.F.W. Murnau's haunting film Nosferatu had its premiere in Berlin in March 1922. Bram Stoker's widow, Florence, tried hard to sue the production company for breach of copyright but had to settle in the end for a court order to destroy all prints and negatives. The film kept resurrecting, though, and is now considered the first, and one of the greatest, of all vampire movies--the founder of a dynasty of prints of darkness.The bloodline has spread from Nosferatu to Hollywood's Dracula and progeny (1931-48); from Hammer's Dracula/Horror of Dracula and sequels (1958-74) to versions of Sheridan Le Fanu's story "Carmilla" and other lesbian vampires (1970-2020); from the bestselling novels 'Salem's Lot and Interview with the Vampire to vampires who have shed their capes, hereditary titles and period trappings to become assorted smalltown oddballs, addicts, delinquents, psychopaths, rednecks, fashionistas, gay icons, comedians and even comic-book heroes (1975-2022).This book is dripping with stills, posters, artworks, press books--many of which have not seen the light of day for a very long time--and is authored by cultural historian and connoisseur of the Gothic Christopher Frayling, who has been called "the Van Helsing de nos jours."Christopher Frayling (born 1946) is a recognized authority on Gothic fiction and horror movies. His study Vampyres (1978, 1990, 2016) and his classic four-part television series Nightmare: The Birth of Horror (1996) have helped to move Gothic horror from margin to mainstream. He is the author of Frankenstein and Once upon a Time in the West.

This series of linked essays explores the crafts in education, in history and literature, in the contemporary arts landscape, in the digital age, and takes an unsentimental, hard-headed look at craftsmanship today. Only when the romantic cobwebs have been blown away, it argues, can the key importance of the crafts be fully understood.

This book will trace the journey of Shelley''s Frankenstein from limited edition literature to the bloodstream of contemporary culture. It includes new research on the novel''s origins, with a reprint of the earliest-known version of the creation scene; visual material on adaptations for the stage, in magazines, on playbills, in prints and in book publications of the nineteenth century; series of visual essays on many of the film versions and their inspirations in the history of art; and Frankenstein in popular culture on posters, advertisements, packaging, in comics and graphic novels.

Explores the genealogy of the film scientist in films made in Western Europe, and especially in Hollywood after the 1930s, showing how in film the scientist has often been used to represent the prevailing phobias of the time. This work also examines the portrayal of real-life scientists in the movies.

Over 400 Spaghetti Westerns were produced during the 1960s and 1970s peak period. This book deals with several interesting examples, not to mention French, German, and Russian Westerns along the way.