Rice, Anne (1941-2021), was an American author known for her popular novels about the supernatural. Rice is best known for her “Vampire Chronicles” series, which includes 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), and Blood Communion (2018). Rice has been praised for the convincing blend of atmosphere and sexuality in her fiction and her skill at making supernatural characters and events seem real and believable.
Rice was born in New Orleans on Oct. 4, 1941. Her birth name was Howard Allen Frances O’Brien, a name her mother thought would be an advantage for a woman in the world. Rice changed her first name to Anne as a child. In 1961, Anne married Stan Rice, who became an English professor, poet, and painter. Anne Rice completed a bachelor’s degree in political science at San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University) in 1964 and a master’s degree in English and creative writing in 1971. Interview with the Vampire, her first novel, was partly inspired by the death of the Rices’ daughter from leukemia at the age of 5. Anne Rice also wrote the screenplay for the 1994 motion-picture version of the work.
Rice created a series called “The Songs of the Seraphim” about a time-traveling assassin named Toby O’Dare. The first two novels in the series are Angel Time (2009) and Of Love and Evil (2010). She also created a series called the “Wolf Gift Chronicles” about wolflike creatures, beginning with The Wolf Gift (2012) and The Wolves of Midwinter (2013). Her “Lives of the Mayfair Witches” series includes The Witching Hour (1990), Lasher (1993), and Taltos (1994).
Rice’s other novels of the supernatural include The Mummy: Or Ramses the Damned (1989), Servant of the Bones (1996), Violin (1997), Pandora (1998), and Vittorio, the Vampire (1999). She wrote the historical novels The Feast of All Saints (1979), set in New Orleans; Cry to Heaven (1982), set in Italy; and two stories about the life of Jesus Christ, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt (2005) and its sequel, Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana (2008). She wrote a memoir, Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession (2008). Rice also wrote novels under the names Anne Rampling and A. N. Roquelaure. Anne Rice died on Dec. 11, 2021.
