Les Daniels
Daniels (right) withFred Chappell in 1990
Born	(1943-10-27)October 27, 1943
Died	November 5, 2011(2011-11-05) (aged 68)
Occupation	Writer musician journalist
Alma mater	Brown University
Genre	Gothic fiction horror fiction historical fiction

Leslie Noel Daniels III, better known asLes Daniels (October 27, 1943 – November 5, 2011^[1]), was an American writer.

Daniels attendedBrown University inProvidence, Rhode Island, where he wrote his master's thesis onFrankenstein, and he worked as a musician and as a journalist.^[2]

He was the author of five novels featuring thevampire Don Sebastian de Villanueva,^[3] a cynical,amoral andmisanthropic Spanish nobleman whose predatory appetites pale into insignificance compared with the historical catastrophes which he witnesses in his periodicreincarnations. These include: theSpanish Inquisition inThe Black Castle (1978); the Spanish conquest of theAztecs inThe Silver Skull (1979); and theFrench Revolution'sReign of Terror inCitizen Vampire (1981). In the later novelsYellow Fog (1986, revised 1988) andNo Blood Spilled (1991), Sebastian is resurrected inVictorian London andIndia, where the horror of his vampirism is again contrasted with non-supernatural evil, now in the person of Sebastian's human enemy, Reginald Callender.A sixth (and presumably final) Don Sebastian novel set inTibet and entitledWhite Demon was planned and is advertised by some sources as being available for purchase, but in fact was never completed: Daniels had begun writing it before abandoning it due to the demands of his non-fiction projects and was told when able to resume that his publisher had lost interest.^[4]

Daniels also worked with the historical fiction genre.The Black Castle features appearances byTorquemada andColumbus; inThe Silver Skull Sebastian confrontsHernán Cortés; inCitizen Vampire he has a couple of friendly encounters with theMarquis de Sade; andMadame Tussaud makes an appearance inYellow Fog.^[4]

Daniels described his works as "tragedy, in which evil consumes itself", as opposed to themelodrama of most contemporary horror novels, in which "customarily good guys meet bad guys and win in two out of three falls".^[5] He citedRobert Bloch as an influence on his sardonic style, and was an enthusiast of the works ofJohn Dickson Carr, who in several of his own works combined historical fiction with horror and the detective story.^[6]

Daniels was also the author ofComix: A History of Comic Books in America (Dutton, 1971) — with illustrations by theMad Peck — andLiving in Fear: A History of Horror in the Mass Media (1975).^[4][1] According to Daniels, at the time he wroteComix, "there was very little literature on the subject and, in fact, there was very little being produced byfandom. It was an attempt to say, 'Look, here's what has been done in the medium.' I didn't sit down and talk to creators at great length or anything like that."^[7] BothComix and the more extensively researchedFive Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics – Marvel (1991) were written with a general audience in mind, in the hopes of educating both comic book fans and those unfamiliar with the medium.^[7]

Don Sebastian de Villanueva

• The Black Castle (1978)
• The Silver Skull (1979)
• Citizen Vampire (1981)
• Yellow Fog (1986; revised and expanded edition 1988)
• No Blood Spilled (1991)
• White Demon (begun circa 1991 but never completed)

An unabridged audio-book recording ofThe Black Castle was released by Crossroad Press in 2018.^[8]

• Comix: A History of Comic Books in America 198 pages, 1971,Random House,ISBN 978-0517110379
• Living in Fear: A History of Horror in the Mass Media, 248 pages, 1975,Charles Scribner's Sons,ISBN 978-0684143422
• Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics, 287 pages, 1991,Harry N. Abrams,ISBN 978-0810938212
• DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World's Favorite Comic Book Heroes, 256 pages, 1995,Bulfinch,ISBN 978-0821220764
• Superman, the Complete History: The Life and Times of the Man of Steel, 192 pages, 1998,Chronicle Books,ISBN 978-0811821629
• Superman: Masterpiece Edition, 96 pages, 1999, Chronicle Books,ISBN 978-0811821117
• Batman The Complete History: The Life and Times of the Dark Knight, 208 pages, 1999, Chronicle Books,ISBN 978-0811824705
• The Batman Masterpiece Edition: The Caped Crusader's Golden Age, 96 pages, 2000, Chronicle Books,ISBN 978-0811827829
• Wonder Woman: The Complete History, 96 pages, 2000, Chronicle Books,ISBN 978-0811831116
• Wonder Woman: The Golden Age, 80 pages, 2001, Chronicle Books,ISBN 978-0811831239
• The Golden Age of DC Comics: 365 Days, 744 pages, 2004, Harry N. Abrams,ISBN 978-0810949690

• Thirteen Tales of Terror (1971; with Diane Thompson)
• Fear (1975)
• Dying of Fright: Masterpieces of the Macabre (1976)

• List of horror fiction authors

• Les Daniels at theInternet Speculative Fiction Database

• 1943 births
• 2011 deaths
• Comics historians
• Comics scholars
• American horror writers
• Comics critics
• Brown University alumni

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from September 2015