Book excerpt: Transformation of the werewolf in literature made its greatest strides in the 19th century when the shape-shifting monster leapt from poetry to the short story. It happened when this shorter form of literature was morphing into darker shapes thanks in no small part to Edgar Allan Poe, Honore de Balzac, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Prosper Merimee, James Hogg, and so many others in Europe and the United States.The fifty year period between 1800 and 1849 is truly the cradle of all werewolf short stories. For the first time in one anthology, Andrew Barger has compiled the best werewolf stories from this period. The stories are "Hugues the Wer-Wolf: A Kentish Legend of the Middle Ages," "The Man-Wolf," "A Story of a Weir-Wolf," "The Wehr-Wolf: A Legend of the Limousin," and "The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains." It is believed that two of these fine stories have never been republished in over one hundred and fifty years since their original printing. Read "The Best Werewolf Short Stories 1800-1849" tonight, just make sure it is not by the light of a full moon "