From Remus Lupin and Jacob Black to Oz Osborne, Tyler Lockwood, Scott McCall and the latter’s predecessor, Scott Howard, there’s no shortage of famous werewolves in popular culture – whether it be novels or their (usually CW-billed) film and television adaptations.
Everyone has their favourite (Oz for me, thank you for asking), but it’s not often us contemporary lycanthropy enthusiasts truly delve into the literary origins of modern werewolf lore. This is usually because we were exposed to the cinematic adaptations before the books, leaving us full of spoilers and pre-spun images.
If you’ve made your way over to this article, you’ve either already begun delving into werewolf fiction or you’re looking for a place to start. Either way, you’re in for a howler.
The result of the telling and retelling of ancient myths and folklore from all over the world, there’s no singular version of lycanthropic lore that can be deemed gospel.
Some scholars believe that the concept of a man-turned-wolf began with The Epic of Gilgamesh, while others trace it back to the Greek myth of King Lycaon, who was turned into a wolf by Zeus after he served the god a meal made from the remains of a sacrificed boy. Like most scientific or specialised vocabulary, it’s through the Greek story that we gained the official name for werewolves – lycanthropes, from lukanthrōpos meaning ‘wolf man’.
Then there’s the swirling, gothic realm of Norse lycanthropic myth. The Völsunga Saga tells the story of a father and son who transformed into wolves after wearing wolf pelts, and Fenrir is a great wolf who breaks free from Ragnarök and kills Odin.
Werewolf mythology has formed something of a palimpsest, with local legends deriving from Proto-Indo-European societies and medieval Europe blending with earlier, ancient myths and religious stories. But where did the concept that they can only be killed with silver bullets come from? And what’s with the full moon?
In Greek myth, silver was a gift from the moon goddess, Selene, and in the Bible, it is seen as a symbol of divine purification. Since the curse of lycanthropy can be traced to a form of divine punishment, it makes sense that holy silver is its only cure. Meanwhile, the moon has long been linked to ‘lunacy’ or the ‘inner beast’, so it’s fitting that the curse should follow the lunar cycle.
From wolfsbane (ancient Greeks hunted wolves by poisoning bait with this plant) to exorcism and burning at the stake, various other methods of defeating the wolf-man have cropped up throughout history – often in direct response or fear of a ‘living’, local creature – such as The Bedburg Werewolf in Germany.
Origins and beliefs aside, the curse of the werewolf has been utilised by authors over the centuries as a metaphor for the inner demon, resulting in works of literature which deal with themes of good versus evil, self-acceptance and divine retribution. With such a vast well of mythological tradition to pull from, it's no wonder lycanthropy continues to fascinate writers and readers alike.
We’ve curated a selection of werewolf books of all time for a howling yarn below.
Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King
The King of Horror has undoubtedly taken a quill to every terrifying piece of folklore imaginable, so it should come as no surprise that he’s covered lycanthropy in his cult-favourite Cycle of the Werewolf novella. Originally published in 1983, King tells the story of a werewolf which haunts a small town called Tarker’s Mills every month, when the full moon rises.
With each chapter following a month in the calendar, King builds up his signature tension with stylistic, blood-turning ease as we track the creature's brutal killings through the perspective of Marty Coslaw, a 10-year-old paraplegic. Each chapter, which almost functions as a short story/ victim profile in itself, also features an illustration by Bernie Wrightson.
Buy now £12.59, Amazon
The Book of Werewolves: Being an Account of a Terrible Superstition Paperback by Sabine Baring-Gould
A fantastic choice for lovers of historical folklore and academia, The Book of Werewolves was written in the mid-19th century by Sabine Baring-Gould, an Anglican priest, hagiographer, antiquarian, novelist, folk song collector and eclectic scholar who is known to have published over 1,000 works in his lifetime.
One of the most frequently cited studies of lycanthropy to date, his Account of a Terrible Superstition covers over 1,000 years of werewolf lore from varying locations – including the berserker of Norse lore, French mythology, and then-modern anecdotes of cannibalism and madness.
Buy now £4.75, Amazon
Those Across the River by Christopher Buehlman
When a failed academic and his wife return to his ancestral, sleepy hometown of Whitbrow in Georgia, Frank Nichols settles in to write a history of his family’s old estate, the Savoyard Plantation, and the horrors that occurred there.
At first, Whitbrow appears to be the pastoral, idyllic community that Frank and Eudora so hoped for, but an unspoken dread which demands sacrifice lurks in the minds and hearts of the townspeople – one that they have lived with for generations. It resides across the river, in the old ruins of Savoyard, and has been waiting patiently to fulfil a blood debt.
Buy now £17.00, Amazon
Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
A captivating, fantastical romance, Stiefvater’s Shiver series, otherwise referred to as The Wolves of Mercy Falls, begins with Grace. She’s watched the wolves in the woods since she was a young child and has always been drawn to one particular beast with yellow eyes.
Sam lives two lives – one in the deep winter with his pack and the watchful eyes of a girl, and one in the blistering summer heat, on two legs for a few precious months.
Buy now £6.71, Amazon
Red Moon by Benjamin Percy
Merging dystopian, post-apocalyptic fiction with werewolves, this unlikely genre-bending novel is set in an almost-present-day USA where a significant portion of the population has become infected with a horrifying Lycan disease. They live among citizens, who in turn live in fear – and there’s an ongoing political debate regarding whether they should be treated as humans or second-class citizens.
Told from the perspective of multiple characters with varying sympathies toward the Lycan population as an uprising begins to form roots, we follow teenager and Lycan since birth Claire Forrester, a descendant of an anti-Lycan war hero Patrick Gamble, and President Chase Williams who has vowed to destroy the menace once and for all.
Buy now £3.57, Amazon
The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan
A classic, romantic take on werewolf lore, The Last Werewolf follows a Lycan who has been roaming the earth for two hundred years, enslaved by his appetite and tormented by his most monstrous crime. As the last of his kind, he counts down to the day on which he vows to end it all, that is – until a violent murder and an extraordinary meeting give him a new lease on life.
Buy now £7.05, Amazon
Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison
Described by readers as the “Hallmark movie of werewolf books”, Harrison takes the age-old trope of lycanthropy and gives it a 21st-century darkly comic makeover in this rollicking tale. When Rory Morris reluctantly moves back to her hometown to support her pregnant twin sister, she heads out to a bar.
After a run-in with an old flame, she hits a large animal with her car, and when she goes to investigate, she’s attacked. Though she survives, Rory notices changes in herself – an aversion to silver and unnatural strength, among other things. Exploring femininity and self-acceptance through horror, Harrison offers up an entertaining and heartwarming yarn.
Buy now £8.19, Amazon
Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones
A unique, coming-of-age story which follows a young, unnamed, potential werewolf living with his aunt and uncle, Mongrels is about a nomadic family living on the fringes of the small, American towns they relocate to at a dizzying rate. For ten years our narrator has lived a life of narrow escapes, but soon his uncle and aunt will know whether he’s destined to be like them – or whether he might chance a life on the other side of the tracks.
Buy now £10.11, Amazon
The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice
The beloved author of Interview with a Vampire takes a crack at Lycanthropic fiction in this equally beloved gothic tale of a beastly outsider. We follow the story of Reuben Golding, a wealthy journalist at the fictional San Francisco Observer who survives a gruesome attack only to gain strange powers. As with all Rice novels, it deals with themes of the mystical and the divine, as well as self-acceptance.
Buy now £9.69, Amazon
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Many journalists and critics appear to leave Stephenie Meyer’s 2005 crowning achievement, and the very reason vampire fiction continues to enjoy such a prosperous contemporary resurgence, out of their supernatural fiction round-ups – but not I.
I consider myself to be a veritable and unabashed Twilight apologist, and while Meyer’s writing and vampire lore don’t remotely compare to that of Stoker or Le Fanu, there’s a reason the series continues to capture our imaginations. An immortal love story for the ages in which the lion falls in love with the lamb, every vampire enthusiast should read Twilight and least once. Though you don’t get to the werewolves until the second book in the series, New Moon, it’s certainly worth the wait.
Buy now £7.99, Amazon
