The Bloody Chamber is an award winning anthology of short stories by Angela Carter. All of the stories share a common theme of being closely based upon fairytales or folk tales, and some of the stories in the book feature some twisted werewolves.
Lets take a peak at a few of the stories in The Bloody Chamber (without giving the ending away).
The Werewolf (based on Little Red Riding Hood)
This story is about a girl that goes to visit her grandmother, but encounters a werewolf on the way. The girl ends up cutting the werewolf‘s paw off with a knife. When she reaches her grandmother’s house, the paw has turned into a hand with a certain special ring on it.
The Company of Wolves (based on Little Red Riding Hood)
In this short story a girl meets a seemingly charming young man whilst wandering through the forest towards her grandmother’s house. She soon arrives at her grandmother’s home, unaware that the same man got there before her and killed her poor grandmother. The young man, who is really a wolf in disguise, then tells her to remove and burn her clothing one by one. This twisted tale brings back the classic lines like, “What big teeth you have!”
The Company of Wolves was later turned into a movie directed by the famous Neil Jordan (Interview with the Vampire).
Wolf-Alice (loosely based on Little Red Riding Hood, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There)
This story is about an incredibly feral child, whom nuns have attempted to civilize, that is left in the house of the vampiric Duke when she does not develop social skills and continues to act wolf-like. This story explores the journey towards subjectivity and self-awareness from the perspective of a feral child.
If you are looking for something way different than the bestselling werewolf books that are hitting shelves now, then I highly suggest picking this collection up.
– Moonlight
