安妮·赖斯是美国当代著名的小说家之一，有“吸血鬼之母”之称，她1941年出生在美国新奥尔良，1961年与诗人斯坦·赖斯结为伉俪，1964年获旧金山州立大学学士学位，1971年获加州大学硕士学位。她在成名之前做过多种工作：女招待、厨师、引座员等等，经历十分丰富，为她的写作奠定了充实的基础。
赖斯的作品以生动描写恐怖情节而著称，小说的主题多为历史背景下人的离群索居及对自我的追求，小说中的人物总是现实社会或非现实社会中孤立的群体。
安妮赖斯的的主要作品有十二部，共称为《吸血鬼编年史》，它们分别是：
《夜访吸血鬼》（Interview with the Vampire ）［1976年创作］
《吸血鬼莱斯特》（The Vampire Lestat 1987）
《被诅咒的女王》（The Queen of the Damned 1989）[又做《吸血鬼女王》（The queen of the Vampire 1989)]
《肉体窃贼》（The Tale of the Body Thief 1992）
《恶魔迈诺克》（Memnoch the Devil 1995）
《潘朵拉》（Pandora 1998）
《吸血鬼阿曼德》(The Vampire Armand 1998)
《吸血鬼维多利奥》（Vittorio the Vampire 1999）
《梅瑞克》（Merrick 2000）
《血和黄金》（Blood and Gold 2001）
《布莱克伍德庄园》（Blackwood Farm 2002）
《血颂》（Blood Canticle 2003 ）
Prologue LESTAT here.
You know who I am? Then skip the next fewparagraphs. For those whom I have not met before, I want thisto be love at first sight.
Behold: your hero for the duration, a perfect imitation of a blond,blue-eyed, six-foot Anglo-Saxon male. A vampire, and one of thestrongest you'll ever encounter. My fangs are too small to be noticedunless I want them to be; but they're very sharp, and I cannot go formore than a few hours without wanting human blood.
Of course, I don't need it that often. And just how often I do needit, I don't know, because I've never put it to the test.
I'm monstrously strong. I can take to the air. I can hear peopletalking on the other side of the city or even the globe. I can readminds; I can bind with spells.
I'm immortal. I've been virtually ageless since 1789.
Am I unique? By no means. There are some twenty other vampiresin the world of whom I know. Half of these I know intimately;one half of those I love.
Add to this twenty a good two hundred vagabonds and strangersof whom I know nothing but now and then hear something; and forgood measure another thousand secretive immortals, roaming aboutin human guise.
Men, women, children梐ny human being can become a vampire.
All it takes is a vampire willing to bring you into it, to suck out mostof your blood, and then let you take it back, mixed with his or herown. It's not all that simple; but if you survive, you'll live forever.
While you're young, you'll thirst unbearably, probably have to killeach night. By the time you're a thousand years old, you'll look andsound wise, even if you were a kid when you started, and you willdrink and kill because you cannot resist it, whether you need it anymore or not.
If you live longer than that, and some do, who knows? You'll gettougher, whiter, ever more monstrous. You'll know so much aboutsuffering that you will go through rapid cycles of cruelty and kindness, insight and maniacal blindness. You'll probably go mad. Thenyou'll be sane again. Then you may forget who you are.
I myself combine the best of vampiric youth and old age. Onlytwo hundred years old, I have been for various reasons granted thestrength of the ancients. I have a modern sensibility but a dead aristocrat's impeccable taste. I know exactly who I am. I am rich. I ambeautiful. I can see my reflection in mirrors. And in shopwindows. Ilove to sing and to dance.
What do I do? Anything that I please.
Think about it. Is it enough to make you want to read my story?
Have you perhaps read my stories of the vampires before?
Here's the catch: it doesn't matter here that I'm a vampire. It isnot central to the tale. It's just a given, like my innocent smile andsoft, purring French-accented voice and graceful way of saunteringdown the street. It comes with the package. But what happened herecould have happened to a human being; indeed, it surely has happened to humans, and it will happen to them again.
We have souls, you and I.
We want to know things; we share thesame earth, rich and verdant and fraught with perils. We don't either of usknow what it means to die, no matter what we might sayto the contrary. It's a cinch that if we did, I wouldn't be writing andyou wouldn't be reading this book.
What does matter very much, as we go into this story together, isthat I have set for myself the task of being a herb in this world. Imaintain myself as morally complex, spiritually tough, and aesthetically relevanta being of blazing insight and impact, a guy withthings to say to you.
So if you read this, read it for that reason that Lestat is talkingagain, that he is frightened, that he is searching desperately for thelesson and for the s.ong and for the raison d'etre, that he wants tounderstand his own story and he wants you to understand it, and thatit is the very best story he has right now to tell.
If that's not enough, read something else.
If it is, then read on. In chains, to my friend and my scribe, I dictated these words. Come with me. Just listen to me. Don't leave mealone.
1I SAW him when he came through the front doors. Tall, solidly built, dark brown hair and eyes, skin still fairly dark because it had been dark when I'd made him a vampire. Walking a little too fast, but basically passing for a human being. My beloved David.
I was on the stairway. The grand stairway, one might say. It was one of those very opulent old hotels, divinely overdone, full of crimson andgold, and rather pleasant. My Victim had picked it. I hadn't.
My victim was dining with his daughter. And I'd picked up from myvictim's mind that this was where he always met his daughter in NewYork, for the simple reason that St. Patrick's Cathedral was acrossthe street.
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