MIXED BLOOD LINES

Violet Fenn. A History of the Vampire in Popular Culture. Pen and Sword, 2021.

This book got off to a bad start in its introductory chapter, when the author suggests that Conan Doyle's fascination with fairies was in “the 1800s” rather than the 1920s. In the nineteenth century the fear of being buried alive was a very real issue, as the boundaries between life and death became blurred by developments in medicine, a topic which was discussed in depth in a recent study of the Frankenstein story. 

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CARRY ON VAMPING

Richard Sugg, The Real Vampires: Death, Terror and the Supernatural, Amberley, 2019.

As one of the earliest members of the esteemed British Dracula Society way back in the 1970s – and therefore almost one of the undead myself by now – this book sparks a special interest for me. Even if it was as rotten as a six-month-old corpse, I’d still give it a go, but as it isn’t – in fact it’s not half bad and actually rather good – here I am recommending it, almost unreservedly.

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A RATHER BLOODLESS VAMPIRE

 Giesen. The Nosferatu Story, The Seminal Horror Film, its Predecessors and its Enduring Legacy. McFarland Company, 2019.

There is an unfortunate typo on the back cover of Rolf Giesen’s book. We are informed that the author is “an expect on early fantasy and science fiction films.” Shame on you, McFarland proof readers! 

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BLOOD AND SOUL

Nick Groom. The Vampire, A New History. Yale University Press, 2018.

Vampires are proving to be an inexhaustible subject of study for academics, novelists and filmmakers. I myself wrote a collection of short stories in 1999 called The Other Side of the Mirror (Citron Press.) In that book I explored the vampire as a metaphor for dark traits of human behaviour, other than bloodletting. Such ideas (perhaps too many) also inform Nick Groom’s fascinating book, The Vampire, A New History.
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VAMP 'TILL READY

Barbara Brodman and James E. Doan. (Editors) The Supernatural Revamped: From Timeworn Legends to Twenty-First-Century Chic. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2016.

Familiar words often have unusual or obscure origins. Everyone knows the meaning of the word 'revamped', to improve the form, structure or appearance of something. But what of the word 'vamp' itself? Of course I had to check an etymological dictionary to discover that in this case it means the upper front part of a shoe.
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THERE’S AN OVER-EDUCATED MONSTER FROM EARTH ABOARD THIS LIGHTWEIGHT UFO…HELP!

Robbie Graham. Silver Screen Saucers: Sorting Fact from Fantasy in Hollywood's UFO Movies. White Crow Books, 2015.

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Brenda S. Gardenour Walter. Our Old Monsters: Witches, Werewolves and Vampires from Medieval Theology to Horror Cinema. McFarland, 2015.

In theory the idea of reading these two books on (a) Hollywood’s relationship with the UFO and (b) Western Culture’s relationship with mythic monsters, and their representation in horror cinema, seemed appealing. They appeared serious accounts of phenomena that are perhaps not taken seriously enough. Unfortunately they are unduly over-serious and overlong.

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BRITISH BLOODLINES

Paul Adams. Written in Blood: A Cultural History of the British Vampire. History Press, 2014.

Although the conventional belief is that the vampire's origin is the Carpathian Mountains or some other rugged area of Eastern Europe, this book demonstrates that the place where the Undead feels most at home is right here in England. 
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VAMPIRES: SAGAS AND SOUND BITES

Margot Adler, Vampires Are Us: Understanding Our Love Affair with the Immortal Dark Side. Weiser, 2014

There’s no question that vampires are big. In fact, they are – or at least have been over the past few years – something of a publishing phenomenon, especially among young adults. There’s even a fashion crossover with the Gothy look, plus the interesting psychological syndrome, usually associated with one’s teenage years, whereby the wearer of striking outfits and make-up is simultaneously screaming ‘look at me/how dare you look at me!’. Vampires, in short, are cool.
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THE UNIVERSAL VAMPIRE

Barbara Brodman and James E. Doan. The Universal Vampire, Origins and Evolution of a Legend. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013.

Vampires are strange creatures. Nearly all of us, at least in the West, will deny them a genuine existence, but they have become one of the most popular entities of our time. Even the "alien" grey has followers who claim that it is as real as you or I (and for some of us, even our reality is debateable).
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AMERICAN VAMPIRES

Bob Curran. American Vampires. New Page Books, 2012.

Anyone picking up this book and hoping for a gore-fest of fangs sinking into throats might be disappointed, it’s far more interesting than that. Dr Bob Curran is a folklorist, and he describes the vampire legend as being just part of a wider folk tradition that involves entities, objects and places that draw, not blood per se, but the vital energy of people who come into contact with them.
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MODERN MONSTERS

Gregory L. Reece. Creatures of the Night: In Search of Ghosts, Vampires, Werewolves and Demons. I. B. Tauris, 2012.

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Alasdair Wickham (i.e. James Buxton). The Black Book of Modern Myths: True Stories of the Unexplained. Arrow Books, 2012.

Gregory Reece having already examined the worlds of ufology and cryptozoology, now turns his attention to the world of the horror story both in reality (or anyway purported reality) and fiction. Starting with his childhood encounter with Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, Reece enters the realm of the supernatural, the realm of ghosts and domain of devils, exploring ghosts, vampires, werewolves, demons and Satanists.

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THE POLITICS OF THE VAMPIRE

Sara Libby Robinson. Blood Will Tell: Vampires as Political Metaphors Before World War I. Academic Studies Press, 2011.

Sara Libby Robinson here shows how the image of the vampire emerged into Western Europe in the 18th century and how during the period around 1870 to 1914 the image of the vampire was used by a variety of political and social groups to stigmatise their enemies, and how that image acted as a symbol to express a variety of social fears and moral panics.
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TWO CLASSIC MONSTERS

S. T. Joshi (editor). Encyclopedia of the Vampire; The Living Dead in Myth, Legend and Popular Culture. Greenwood, 2011.

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Bob Curran. Man-Made Monsters: A Field Guide to Golems, Patchwork Soldiers, Homunculi and Other Created Creatures. New Page 2010.

Well, you wait ages for one gigantic encyclopaedia about vampires, and then two turn up! Following on from J. Gordon Melton's 900 page tome (LINK) we get a mere 450 pages in this volume, and the total weight is 1.1 kg. as against Melton's 1.5 kg. However in terms of content it is hard to decide which is the weightier.

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EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT VAMPIRES

J. Gordon Melton. The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead. Visible Ink Press, 2010.

Gordon Melton is probably best know to Magonia readers as the author of numerous books and papers on religious cults, particularly in the USA, and has written specifically on 'UFO Religions' such as the Raelians. An encyclopedia of vampires may seem a little out of his field, but it is clear from this book that vampire fandom has a great deal in common with the cultic milieu, 

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VAMPIRES

Mark Collins Jenkins. Vampire Forensics: Uncovering the Origins of an Enduring Legend. National Geographic, 2010.

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M. J. Trow. A Brief History of Vampires. Constable and Robinson, 2010.

Vampires are the in thing, especially if these books are to be believed, among teenage girls; pop stars with fangs as it were. Jenkins and Trow both track the vampire down through his/her manifestations in popular culture, each manifestation showing the changing times, and attitudes to and perceptions of the forbidden.