The Vampire Chronicles
The Vampire Chronicles is a series of Gothic vampire novels and a media franchise, created by American author Anne Rice, that revolves around the fictional character Lestat de Lioncourt, a French nobleman turned into a vampire in the 18th century.
Rice said in a 2008 interview that her vampires were a "metaphor for lost souls". The homoerotic overtones of The Vampire Chronicles are well-documented. As of November 2008, The Vampire Chronicles had sold 80 million copies worldwide.
The first novel in the series, Interview with the Vampire, was made into a 1994 film of the same name. The Queen of the Damned was adapted into a 2002 film of the same name, which also used some material from The Vampire Lestat. Both films were released by Warner Bros. Pictures. A television series, Interview with the Vampire, premiered on AMC in 2022.
Books in the series
Rice considered Blood Canticle a conclusion to the series and thought she would never write about Lestat again. In a 2008 interview with Time, she called her vampires a "metaphor for lost souls", and noted that writing about them had been, to her, "a sort of search for God and a kind of grief for a lost faith." Her 1998 return to the Catholic Church after 38 years of atheism had prompted a change in the direction of her writing that resulted in her 2005 novel Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and its 2008 sequel Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana.However, in the same interview, Rice said: "I have one more book that I would really like to write; and the book will have a definite Christian framework and it will concern the vampire Lestat; and it will be a story I think I need to tell. But it will have to be in a redemptive framework. It will have to be where Lestat is really wrestling with the existence of God in a very personal way." That same year she produced a YouTube video in which she told her readers that she had dismissed any intentions of writing any more books in The Vampire Chronicles, calling the series "closed". Later, during a 2012 Q&A in Toronto, Canada, an audience member asked Rice if she would bring any of her old characters back, to which she replied: "I'm not ruling it out. I think it's very possible. I mean, I feel completely open with a new confidence in myself about it. I want to hear what Lestat has to say." On March 10, 2014, Rice announced a new installment of The Vampire Chronicles titled Prince Lestat, calling it the first of a new series. Prince Lestat was released on October 28, 2014. A sequel, Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis, was released on November 29, 2016, followed by Blood Communion: A Tale of Prince Lestat on October 2, 2018.
Related series
''New Tales of the Vampires'' series
- Pandora,
- Vittorio the Vampire,
''Lives of the Mayfair Witches'' series
- The Witching Hour,
- Lasher,
- Taltos,
- Merrick
- Blackwood Farm
- ''Blood Canticle''
Plot summary
''Interview with the Vampire'' (1976)
tells a young reporter the story of how he had been made a vampire in 18th-century New Orleans by Lestat de Lioncourt. In creating and sheltering the child vampire Claudia, Lestat and Louis had unknowingly set tragedy in motion.''The Vampire Lestat'' (1985)
This book chronicles Lestat's own origins, as he resurfaces in the modern world and attempts to find meaning by exposing himself to humanity in the guise of a rock star. This attracts the attention of the ancient vampire Marius de Romanus, and culminates in the accidental awakening of Akasha, the ancient Egyptian queen and first vampire, who has been immobile for millennia and safeguarded by Marius.''The Queen of the Damned'' (1988)
Lestat has awakened Akasha, the first of all vampires, who has in her thousands of years of immobility contrived an idealized way to achieve world peace; by killing almost all males and destroying all other vampires. She is herself destroyed by the vampire witch Mekare, who has awakened and returned after 6,000 years to fulfill a promise to destroy Akasha at the moment she poses the greatest threat.''The Tale of the Body Thief'' (1992)
The novel finds Lestat haunted by his past and tiring of immortality. A thief switches bodies with him and runs off, and Lestat enlists David Talbot, leader of the Talamasca and one of his only remaining friends, to help him retrieve his own body.''Memnoch the Devil'' (1995)
Lestat meets the Devil, who calls himself Memnoch. He takes Lestat on a whirlwind tour of Heaven and Hell, and retells the entirety of history from his own point of view in an effort to convince Lestat to join him as God's adversary. In his journey, Memnoch claims he is not evil, but merely working for God by ushering lost souls into Heaven. Lestat is left in confusion, unable to decide whether or not to cast his lot with the Devil.Subsequent novels
Rice's New Tales of the Vampires—''Pandora and Vittorio the Vampire —do not feature Lestat at all, instead telling the stories of the eponymous peripheral vampires, the Patrician Pandora from Rome in the 1st century B.C. and the 15th-century Italian nobleman Vittorio.Armand tells his own life story in 1998's The Vampire Armand, and Rice's Mayfair Witches series crosses over with The Vampire Chronicles in Merrick as Louis and David seek Merrick Mayfair's help in resurrecting Claudia's spirit. The origins of Marius are explored in 2001's Blood and Gold, and Blackwood Farm tells the story of young Tarquin Blackwood as he enlists Lestat and Merrick to help him banish a spirit named Goblin. 2003's Blood Canticle intertwines the vampire, Blackwood and Mayfair storylines, and was intended by Rice to conclude the series.
Prince Lestat rejoins the remaining vampires a decade later as Lestat faces pressure to lead them. Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis and Blood Communion'' continued this new narrative thread.
Mythology
In her review of The Vampire Lestat ''The New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani noted, "We learn lots of 'facts' about vampires and vampire culture. We learn that they cry tears of blood, that they're capable of reading other people's minds, that they can be destroyed by fire and sunlight. We learn that 'no vampire may ever destroy another vampire, except that the coven master has the power of life and death over all of his flock'; and we learn that 'no vampire shall ever reveal his true nature to a mortal and allow that mortal to live'." Through The Tale of The Body Thief and Memnoch The Devil'', the cosmology of the series expands into exploration of broader supernatural themes and realms, particularly of Heaven and Hell, and also into exploration of apex supernatural entities like angels, the devil, and God Himself. Memnoch also acknowledges that many other types of earthbound supernatural creatures exist aside from the vampires, which leaves open connections to Rice's Taltos and werewolf stories.Backstory
Rice chronicles the origins of her vampires in The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the Damned.The first vampires appeared in Ancient Egypt, their origin connected to spirits which existed before Earth. Mekare and Maharet, twin witches living on Mount Carmel, were able to speak to the mischievous and bloodthirsty shade Amel. Amel grew to love Mekare, becoming her familiar. In time, soldiers sent by Akasha, Queen of Egypt, burned their village and captured the two witches. Coveting their knowledge and power, the Queen imprisoned and tortured the witches for some time; this infuriated the spirit of Amel, who began to haunt Akasha's villages and her nobles.
In time, as Akasha's own treacherous noblemen conspired against her and instigated both her murder and that of her husband, King Enkil, the spirit of Amel infused into her body as she lay dying. The shade's power and bloodlust roused her from death – reborn as the first immortal. After siring her spouse as well, Akasha and Enkil became known as the Divine Parents. To punish the twins for standing against her, the Queen had Maharet's eyes torn out and Mekare's tongue severed. Before they were to be executed, the steward Khayman sired them both out of pity.
Together they formed the First Brood and stood against the Divine Parents and their followers, the Queen's Blood. Overwhelmed and captured, the twins were separated and sent into exile; Maharet to familiar lands in the Red Sea, and Mekare to uncharted waters out towards the west. After two millennia, the Queen and King went mute and catatonic. They were maintained like statues by elders and priests under the impression that if Akasha – the host of Amel, the Sacred Core – died, all vampires would die with her. As the Common Era arrived, most undead forgot.
As years passed, the story of the Divine Parents were maintained by a few elders who barely believed it themselves. Despite this, many of the self-made blood gods – vampires from Akasha's earlier progeny – remained entombed in hollowed-out trees or brick cells where they starved. Early in the Common Era, the elder who was entrusted to keep the Parents abandoned Akasha and Enkil in the desert to wait for the sun to rise and consume them. While they remained unharmed, young vampires everywhere were destroyed by fire and even mighty elders were badly burned.
Following this, the fledgling Marius – a gifted Roman scholar – went to Egypt and retrieved the Divine Parents, making them his sacred responsibility as the new keeper. Over the course of nearly two millennia, they came to be known in legends as Marius and Those Who Must Be Kept. At some point in time, Maharet returned to her village on Mount Carmel in the guise of a distant family member. She returned periodically over the course of many centuries to keep a record of her descendants, all the way down to Jesse Reeves – one of the last of the Great Family.