The days grow shorter, the cold begins to be felt and the leaves turn red and orange. In short, autumn has arrived, and readers put aside their summer reads to pull from the shelves stories with darker atmospheres, the kind that are best read with a blanket wrapped around you and just one lamp lit.
And so the publishing autumn also enriches itself with themed novelties. In particular, vampires seem to have returned to the center of publishers’ interest (but perhaps they never really left?) the vampires: nocturnal creatures, with sharp fangs and pale skin, imagined for a couple of centuries as figures (often aristocratic) capable of misguiding the minds of the young (and not only) and, of course, sucking the blood of their victims.
Here then are the October and November 2026 novelties to note and put on your list, ideally before sunset, or with some garlic nearby (the reason has been explained by Ilaria Gaspari in this reflection…).
Vampire books coming soon
Blackie draws from the past, and brings for the first time in an Italian edition The Delicate Dependency by Michael Talbot (translated by Cristina D’Orazi): published in 1982, it quickly became one of the cult books among those in which vampires play leading roles. In Victorian London, Dr. John Gladstone finds himself in a dark world, populated by night creatures, alluring and immortal. Time passes and his younger daughter is in danger, kidnapped by the young and handsome Niccolò, while his eldest daughter remains fascinated by the “call of eternity.”
L’Ippocampo continues the tale of fantastic creatures within the series The Encyclopedia of Wonder by Sébastien Perez and Benjamin Lacombe. In the second half of November arrives in bookstores the volume I vampiri (translated by Eva Luna Mascolino), to travel through the centuries and literature, and discover its many protagonists, famous and less famous: from Dracula to Edward Cullen, passing through related creatures, such as the Jorōgumo from Japanese folklore.
Parliamo di un volume decorated and illustrated, prezioso per ogni amante del fantastico, che spazia tra i riferimenti: gli autori, infatti, dedicano un capitolo ai vampiri animali e alle divinità assetate di sangue, ai vampiri “sociali” e ai celebri cacciatori, da Van Helsing a Buffy…
Non manca poi, in un clima che tende al fantasy, Paris Celestial, the new novel by the Sino-Canadian author A.Y. Chao (published by e/o, it is the sequel to Shanghai Immortal). Half vampire, half fox spirit, Lady Jing travels toward Paris to meet a healer, but when the vehicle she travels on – the Immortal Express – is hijacked by vampires, everything changes. And Jing is faced with a decisive choice…
Restando in tema vampiri, for chi ama la nona arte, Edizioni BD publishes the seventh volume of #DRCL Midnight Children by Shin-Ichi Sakamoto (translated by Marco Franca): a retelling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula that follows Mina and her friends dealing with a monstrous creature that has arrived in England from Eastern Europe. Sakamoto reworks the vampire figure, especially in its physical appearance, while maintaining the sense of the elusive and the terrifying that has characterized the Count and his kin for centuries.
Parlando di novità, inoltre, Sellerio proposes the new book by Italian writer and editor Andrea Morstabilini, Moon-Colored Blood. A book that recalls the mythic and Gothic tradition, but also History. At the center of the novel, not by chance, we find two men and two women, vampires with pink blood and capable of healing others. But threats are many, and the only solution, apparently, resides in the cult for the Re of fairy tales and the Moon, the ruler Ludwig II of Bavaria…
New editions not to be missed
While new vampires arrive to entertain readers during their darkest evenings, existing names are ready to return in a new guise. And we know how vanity-minded these creatures can be…
Among the most loved vampire sagas there’s undoubtedly Twilight, a well-known example of the “paranormal romance”. If last year, on the twenty-year anniversary, Fazi had reissued the first volume in deluxe edition, now it’s the turn of the second volume, New Moon (translated by Luca Fusari). At the center is the complex relationship between Bella Swan and the vampire Edward, while in the background Jacob, her werewolf friend, reappears, and a series of murders on the edge of the forest that warns the community…
We come to a reference author when it comes to vampires… For those who loved the cult novel Interview with the Vampire, Tea offers in a new edition The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice. After the release of the first three volumes a few months ago (on that occasion we reported on the significant output of the American writer), now it is the turn of The Body Thief, Memnoch the Devil and Armand the Vampire; while waiting for October 30, when the next three novels will come – Merrick the Witch; The Vampire Marius and The Vampire of Blackwood.
Remember, too, that from Interview with the Vampire a famous film was made in 1994, as well as a TV series in 2022.
And Dracula?
Recognized as one of the quintessential Gothic classics, Dracula by Bram Stoker is an epistolary novel from 1897, capable of entering the common imagination and making the character of the Count Dracula a reference point for adaptations, transpositions, and works of various kinds. At the heart of the plot can only be the noble vampire, former lord of a castle in the menacing Transylvania, where the notary Jonathan Harker arrives to conclude the sale of a property; and then a nocturnal creature ready to infest London…
Last October 1st Dracula returned, but fear not, we are not talking about malevolent spirits animating the nights, but an Audible project that has transformed the work into an “immersive listening experience.“ In the audiobook, Dracula has the voice of actor Riccardo Scamarcio, while Mina, Jonathan Harker’s companion, is portrayed by actress Benedetta Porcaroli.
Dracula returns to the cinema
Between October 30 and November 1, the famous Francis Ford Coppola film Dracula returns to the theaters, in a restored 4K version. A chance to again appreciate Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves and Anthony Hopkins in one of the most acclaimed adaptations, more than 30 years after its release.
