By Seth Grahame-Smith
Grand Central Publishing | 336pgs
Release Date: March 02, 2010

Seth Grahame-Smith’s fantastical foray into the horror/history genre Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, opens in a small cabin in Indiana, during the year 1818. Lincoln, a boy of just nine years, watches his mother’s life slip away as she suffers from a mysterious illness called “Milk Sickness.” Later as a young man, he learns that his mother’s death was caused by a vampire, and embarks on a life-long crusade to fight against the undead masses. Though Lincoln’s great accomplishments of ending slavery and fighting to keep America united have been well documented, his vendetta against vampires remained secret. Author Seth Grahame-Smith is finally able to bring these secrets to light with the discovery of The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln. Drawing on events recorded in the diary, Grahame-Smith stages an epic “biography” of the 16th President, revealing the shrouded history of the Civil War, and the role the undead evil-doers played in the upheaval.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter follows Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the literary/horror mash-up that debuted at #3 on the New York Times bestseller list last year. P&P&Z started the current mash-up trend that has run rampant through the literary industry and spawned titles such as Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters and Android Karenina. Critical reviews have been split for Grahame-Smith’s second mashed novel. Publishers Weekly finds that “the author’s decision to reduce slavery to a mere contrivance of the vampires is unfortunate bordering on repellent”. While Eric Spitznagel of Vanity Fair deems the book “…the funniest, most action-packed and weirdly well-researched account of the Civil War you’ll probably read in a long time.”