The idea of werewolves and/or lycanthropes has long been involved in ancient mythology and folklore but when did the genre appear in literature? The earliest surviving record of wolf transformations goes as far back as 2,100 B.C. with The Epic of Gilgamesh.
Then came the 19-Century and rise of gothic literature, heavily inspired from folklore and mythologies to create the present fictional werewolf genre. Here are some notable/earliest books of werewolves in the 19th century:
The Man-Wolf - by Leitch Ritchie (1831)
Hugues, the Wer-Wolf - by Sutherland Menzies (1838)
A Story of a Weir-Wolf - Catherine Crow (1846)
Wagner the Wehr-Wolf - by G. W. M. Reynolds (1847)
The Were-Wolf - by Clemence Housman (1896)
The golden age of the genre was in the 20th-century with the creation of The Werewolf of Paris by American author Guy Endore in 1933, the most renowned werewolf novel of the 20th century according to wikipedia. And so, the werewolf genre continues to strive in our modern day literature as well as the entertainment industries that produced cinematic masterpieces (I'm being sarcastic) such as Van Helsing, The Vampire Diaries, Teen Wolf, Twilight, and- how can we forget- Hotel Transylvania .
A/N: I know Twilight and TVD are about vampires but they're famous about their entire wolves things too so...
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Werewolf Guide
Kurt AdamA basic guide to better understand werewolf fics. This is just one in many guides on the internet so feel free to go around and look at other works :) ig: syneshouse
