Monthly Archives: March 2012

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Grandfather Montague

Augustus Montague Summers was an English author and clergyman who was especially well known for his studies of vampires, witches, and werewolves. He wrote eight books on the occult including The Vampire, His Kith and Kin in 1928 and The Vampire in Europe in 1929.

One thing that struck me early on about Montague Summers was that although he’s not related to me, he would have been about the right age be my grandfather’s older brother. Montague was born in 1880. My grandfather was born in 1898. Montague died in 1948. My grandfather died in 1957. Yes, Montague was 18 years older than my grandfather, but I have a brother 15 years older than me. It doesn’t feel like much of a stretch!

Because we share a surname and because Montague wrote so extensively about vampires, I’ve long thought of him as a sort of literary grandfather. He recorded many vampire stories from all around the world. Now, it’s a fair question how good his scholarship was and as one critic says, his style is often “dense and bewildering.” Still, reading many of the legends he recorded proved to be a good way for me to break away from a lot of the vampire stereotypes and create my own fictional vampire lore.

As it turns out, I have a story coming out in Cemetery Dance Magazine that was inspired by a couple of passages from Montague Summers’ The Vampire in Europe. Over the next couple of posts, I’ll share the passages and tell how they relate to the story and how that story relates to the wider world of the Scarlet Order vampires.

If you’d like to check out the story, you can order it at: http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/_cd066

Montague Summers inspired much of Vampires of the Scarlet Order. You can pick up the book at Amazon.com.

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Who exactly is D.L. Summers?

Before I answer the title question, I want to take the opportunity to apologize. It’s been far too long since I’ve posted anything here. Some of that has simply been a lack of news about my vampire stories and books. Some of that was a hectic 2011 in which my wife underwent a battle with breast cancer — and by all accounts she won the war. Some of it has been working with the owners of Lachesis Publishing and Sinful Moments Press evaluating the best way to release and market my second vampire novel, Dragon’s Fall. This last point brings us right back to the title question.

If you have visited this blog at any point in the last year or so, I don’t think there’s any mystery that D.L. is short for David Lee. Over the last decade I have written a vampire novel and numerous vampire short stories under the name “David Lee Summers.” I have also written four science fiction novels and one steampunk novel under that name. Although all of the novels are written for an adult audience, one of the science fiction novels and the steampunk novel are also suitable for young adult audiences. However, Vampires of the Scarlet Order and Dragon’s Fall are not intended for younger readers at all.

Another consideration was that both Vampires of the Scarlet Order and Dragon’s Fall are written in the form of journal entries, a form I adopted as an homage to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Some of the journal entries are written by men, some by women — again the same as Stoker. I grew to like the idea of leaving my gender ambiguous, so readers wouldn’t hear a man’s voice reading the journal entries ostensibly written by women.

Three years ago when I negotiated my contract for Dragon’s Fall, I raised these issues with my publisher. She agreed they were both valid points and we decided to release Dragon’s Fall under the name D.L. Summers.

The problem that both my publisher and I should have realized is that anyone looking for a “David Lee Summers” vampire story or novel, is unlikely to find a “D.L. Summers” vampire story. Also, as time went on, I began to realize that I had over thought the whole issue of younger people getting the books for adults. As I mentioned earlier, all of my books are for adults. It just so happens that younger people can also read an enjoy two of the others.

Now, in the period since the contract was negotiated, the publishing company has gone through some management changes. In discussions with the management, we decided two things. First, instead of bringing Dragon’s Fall out as a five-novella series, we’d bring the whole novel out at once. Second, we’d bring the novel out under the name “David Lee Summers”.

Christopher Lee

Montague Summers

It feels good to be back as “David Lee Summers”. Not only is it my given name, I’ve always liked the way it plays homage to two of the greats in the history of vampire lore — Christopher Lee and Montague Summers. Of course, Christopher Lee played Dracula in many of the great Hammer films. Montague Summers wrote extensively about vampires around the turn of the 20th century.

So what will happen to this blog? Well D.L. Summers is still me and I figure this is as good a place as any to talk about things of interest to vampire lovers. So it’ll stick around for the time being. I plan to post more regularly — look for Sunday afternoon posts in the coming month. Remember, I also have a page for my vampire stories on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Scarlet-Order-Vampires/159599227447475.

Finally, for those who don’t want to wait to start Dragon’s Fall, the first two novellas are still out in ebook — under the name D.L. Summers. Here are links to where you can pick up the novellas: