Lestat de Lioncourt

Lestat de Lioncourt is a fictional character from Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles novel series. Born in the late 1700s, Lestat is an immortal vampire and the antihero of the franchise. Publication history Lestat is introduced in Rice's 1976 novel Interview with the Vampire, the first book of what would become The Vampire Chronicles. His full backstory is explored in The Vampire Lestat (1985), which follows Lestat's exploits from his youth in the Auvergne region of France to his early years as a vampire fledgling. Lestat is the lead character in most novels in the main series, including The Queen of the Damned (1988), The Tale of the Body Thief (1992), Memnoch the Devil (1995), and Blood Canticle (2003). Rice later revisited the Lestat-centric series, starting with Prince Lestat (2014), followed by Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis (2016) and Blood Communion: A Tale of Prince Lestat (2018). Character development According to Rice, Lestat was largely inspired by her husband, the poet and artist Stan Rice; both have blond hair and they share November 7 as a birth date. In a 2003 interview, Rice noted that the character had also taken on some of her own attributes, stating, "Stan was Lestat; he was the inspiration. Perhaps it is best to say Lestat was Stan and me. He was Stan and what Stan taught me. Lestat was inspired by Stan, and then I became Lestat." The name "Lestat" was a misspelling of "Lestan," which Rice believed to be an old Louisianan name. According to the characters themselves, who discuss the issue in Blackwood Farm, Blood Canticle and Memnoch the Devil, the name is pronounced "les-dot" "with a rather French flair." Fictional character biography