A review of Eliot O’Donnell’s book Werwolves.

As a child, I discovered I enjoyed creature features, and – bless her heart – my mother often indulged me in that. Somehow, somewhere, she found this book and got it for me. At the time, I devoured it (well, in retrospect, that’s on-brand for me), but over time kinda forgot about it. I lost many of my books in a Massive Mold Infestation when I was a teenager, and my guess is that it was one of the casualties.

Recently, I remembered, and hunted the book down. Oh joy!

It was every bit as enjoyable and weird as it was the first day I read it.

O’Donnell’s style of writing feels very much like a Kolchak-style exploration of the hidden world of werewolves, including stories of werewolves and other lycanthropes from many cultures. Back when I read this, I was also reading tons of books about other cryptids, alien astronauts, pyramid power, etc. (we all were, admit it, haha) It all fit together very nicely. Nowadays, this style might feel a bit dated, but the overall presentation still fits together perfectly.

Now, I’ll go you one further… this book was first published in 1912! It’s been reprinted so many times, and every time I encounter a reprint, it still feels like I am in some forgotten corner of an ancient library, reading a book I should never have been allowed to see.

If you want to pick up any of the neat reproductions, by all means do so! You can also find it at Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26629