The Vampire Chronicles, Your Complete Reading Order for Anne Rice’s gothic series
Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. I may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.
The Vampire Chronicles is a series of gothic horror novels written by American author Anne Rice, also known as the Lestat series.
Reading The Vampire Chronicles in Order
Anne Rice not only wrote The Vampire Chronicles, but she also wrote the New Tales of the Vampires and Lives of the Mayfair Witches, two series that offered a few crossovers with the first one.
The Vampire Chronicles Reading Order
First, let’s take a look at the most straightforward way to read Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles in order. Only the books in the series:
– Interview with the Vampire (1976)
– The Vampire Lestat (1985)
– The Queen of the Damned (1988)
– The Tale of the Body Thief (1992)
– Memnoch the Devil (1995)
– The Vampire Armand (1998)
– Merrick (2000)
– Blood and Gold (2001)
– Blackwood Farm (2002)
– Blood Canticle (2003)
– Prince Lestat (2014)
– Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis (2016)
– Blood Communion: A Tale of Prince Lestat (2018)
The Vampire Chronicles “Chronological” Order
Then, here are all of the books that are part of the Vampire Chronicles extended universe. This is not purely a Vampire Chronicles Chronological Order, but almost. It is more of a recommended Reading Order.
– Interview with the Vampire (1976)
– The Vampire Lestat (1985)
– The Queen of the Damned (1988)
– The Tale of the Body Thief (1992)
– Witching Hour (1990) – part of the Lives of the Mayfair Witches
– Lasher (1993) – part of the Lives of the Mayfair Witches
– Taltos (1994) – part of the Lives of the Mayfair Witches
– Memnoch the Devil (1995)
– Vittorio (1999) part of the New Tales of the Vampires
– The Vampire Armand (1998)
– Pandora (1998) – part of the New Tales of the Vampires
– Blood and Gold (2001)
– Merrick (2000)
– Blackwood Farm (2002)
– Blood Canticle (2003)
– Prince Lestat (2014)
– Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis (2016)
– Blood Communion: A Tale of Prince Lestat (2018)
More about the Interview with a Vampire series
The Story of The Vampire Chronicles
The Vampire Chronicles mostly revolves around the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt, a French nobleman who was turned into a vampire during the 18th century.
Lestat is the lead character in most novels in the series, but not in Interview with the Vampire (1976) that introduced him. He was then a secondary character, but his full backstory was explored in the second book in the series, The Vampire Lestat (1985), making him the main focus of the story.
Here is the official presentation for The Vampire Lestat:
“Lestat, having risen from the earth after a fifty-five years’ sleep, and infatuated with the modern world, presents himself in all his vampire brilliance as a rock star, a superstar, a seducer of millions. And, in this blaze of adulation, daring to break the vampire oath of silence, he determines to tell his story, to rouse the generations of the living dead from their slumbers and to penetrate the riddle of his own existence.”
Does The Vampire Chronicles series need to be read in order?
As Anne Rice said in 2001: “I don’t think it much matters. […] The Vampire books are specifically written so that you can read any one first or second.“
How many books are there in the The Vampire Chronicles?
There are 13 novels if we only count the books in The Vampire Chronicles series.
If we add the adjacent books from the New Tales of the Vampires and Lives of the Mayfair Witches, there are 18 novels.
Has The Vampire Chronicles book series ended?
Yes. The last book in The Vampire Chronicles series was published in 2018. With Anne Rice’s death in 2021, there will not be any more books in the series.
Is there an adaptation of The Vampire Chronicles?
A film adaptation of Interview with the Vampire directed by Neil Jordan starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Kirsten Dunst, and Christian Slater was released in 1994.
Also, the movie Queen of the Damned, released in 2002 and starring Stuart Townsend as Lestat and Aaliyah as Akasha, was based on The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the Damned books.
After multiple failed attempts, a TV adaptation of Interview with the Vampire, starring Jacob Anderson as Louis de Pointe du Lac, Sam Reid as Lestat de Lioncourt, and Bailey Bass as Claudia, has been launched with success in 2022 on AMC (in the US).
The same cable network also announced the TV adaptation of the Mayfair Witches, starring Alexandra Daddario as Dr Rowan Fielding, Harry Hamlin as Cortland Mayfair, Tongayi Chirisa as Ciprien Grieve and Jack Huston as Lasher, for 2023.
About the author of The Vampire Chronicles
Who is Anne Rice?
Anne Rice (1941 – 2021) was known as an American author of gothic fiction, erotic literature, and Christian literature.
She began her professional writing career with the publication of Interview with the Vampire (1976), a book she wrote as she was grieving the loss of her daughter. After this first success, she wrote historical novels and erotic novels (under the pseudonyms A. N. Roquelaure and Anne Rampling).
In 1985, she returned to her world of vampires and started to expand The Vampire Chronicles.
What has Anne Rice written beyond The Vampire Chronicles series?
Beyond The Vampire Chronicles, New Tales of the Vampires, and Lives of the Mayfair Witches, Anne Rice published standalone novels, but also more series like the historical horror series Ramses the Damned, the Christian books Christ the Lord, Songs of the Seraphim, and more gothic fictions with The Wolf Gift Chronicles.