Anne Rice (1941 to 2021), born Howard Allen Frances O’Brien in New Orleans, was an American author of Gothic fiction, erotic literature and Bible fiction, and one of the best-selling writers of modern times, with over 100 million copies sold. Her name is inseparable from The Vampire Chronicles, the series that began with Interview with the Vampire in 1976; she later adapted that first novel into the commercially successful 1994 film.
Her life had its own Gothic architecture. Raised in an observant Catholic family, she became an agnostic as a young adult, made a much-publicised return to Catholicism in the mid-2000s – producing two Christ the Lord novels – and later stepped away from organised religion altogether, eventually describing herself as a secular humanist. She was married to the poet and painter Stan Rice for 41 years, and their son Christopher became a writer. She also published erotic fiction under the pen names Anne Rampling and A. N. Roquelaure, and her vampires have found new life in AMC’s acclaimed television adaptation.
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