Surveys centuries of folklore about vampires and offers a scientific explanation for the origins of the legends.

Mark Jenkins’s engrossing history draws on the latest science, anthropological and archaeological research to explore the origins of vampire stories, providing gripping historic and folkloric context for the concept of immortal beings who defy death by feeding on the lifeblood of others. From the earliest whispers of eternal evil in ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome, vampire tales flourished through the centuries and around the globe, fueled by superstition, sexual mystery, fear of disease and death, and the nagging anxiety that demons lurk everywhere. In Vampire Forensics, Mark Jenkins probes vampire legend to tease out the historical truths enshrined in the tales of terror: sherds of Persian pottery depicting blood-sucking demons; the amazing recent discovery by National Geographic archaeologist Matteo Borrini of a 16th-century Venetian grave of a plague victim and suspected vampire; and the Transylvanian castle of "Vlad the Impaler," whose bloodthirsty cruelty remains unsurpassed. Jenkins navigates centuries of lore and legend, adding new chapters to the chronicle and weaving an irresistibly seductive blend of superstition, psychology, and science sure to engross everyone from Anne Rice’s countless readers to serious students of archaeology and mythology.

These stories of vampire legends and gruesome nineteenth-century practices is “a major contribution to the study of New England folk beliefs” (The Boston Globe). For nineteenth-century New Englanders, “vampires” lurked behind tuberculosis. To try to rid their houses and communities from the scourge of the wasting disease, families sometimes relied on folk practices, including exhuming and consuming the bodies of the deceased. Folklorist Michael E. Bell spent twenty years pursuing stories of the vampire in New England. While writers like H.P. Lovecraft, Henry David Thoreau, and Amy Lowell drew on portions of these stories in their writings, Bell brings the actual practices to light for the first time. He shows that the belief in vampires was widespread, and, for some families, lasted well into the twentieth century. With humor, insight, and sympathy, he uncovers story upon story of dying men, women, and children who believed they were food for the dead. “A marvelous book.” —Providence Journal Includes an updated preface covering newly discovered cases.

Citing examples from folklore, as well as horror films, TV shows, and works of fiction, this book details all known ways to prevent vampirism, including how to protect oneself against attacks and how to destroy vampires. While offering explanations on the origins and uses of most commonly known tactics in fending off vampirism, the book also delves much deeper by collecting historical accounts of unusual burial rites and shocking superstitions from European history, from the “real” Serbian vampire Arnold Paole to the unique Bulgarian Djadadjii, a professional vampire “bottler.” It traces the evolution of how to kill the fictional vampire—from Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the Hammer horror films beginning in the 1950s to Anne Rice’s Lestat and the dreamy vamps of Twilight, True Blood, and The Vampire Diaries—and also celebrates the most important slayers, including Van Helsing, Buffy, and Blade. In exploring how and why these monsters have been created and the increasingly complex ways in which they are destroyed, the book not only serves as a handy guide to the history and modern role of the vampire, it reveals much about the changing nature of human fears.

The author of A Guide to Haunted New England lifts the coffin lid on the region’s folklore and legends of the undead. New England is rich in history and mystery. Numerous sleepy little towns and farming communities distinguish the region’s scenic tranquility. But not long ago, New Englanders lived in fear of spectral ghouls believed to rise from their graves and visit family members in the night to suck their lives away. Although the word “vampire” was never spoken, scores of families disinterred loved ones during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries searching for telltale signs that one of them might be what is now referred to as the New England vampire. “In his remarkable book . . . Thomas D’Agostino details the longstanding belief among New Englanders that supernatural entities were responsible for the disease called consumption.”—Crime Capsule Includes photos! Praise for A Guide to Haunted New England “Fun, charming . . . includes not only locales with reported ghosts, but also sites with macabre (though not haunted) histories.”—True Crime Librarian “Anyone interested in exploring the haunted, macabre and abandoned throughout New England knows they can count on D’Agostino to find out more about the site’s history, past sightings and how to find them.”—Mobile RVing

An authoritative new history of the vampire, two hundred years after it first appeared on the literary scene Published to mark the bicentenary of John Polidori’s publication of The Vampyre, Nick Groom’s detailed new account illuminates the complex history of the iconic creature. The vampire first came to public prominence in the early eighteenth century, when Enlightenment science collided with Eastern European folklore and apparently verified outbreaks of vampirism, capturing the attention of medical researchers, political commentators, social theorists, theologians, and philosophers. Groom accordingly traces the vampire from its role as a monster embodying humankind’s fears, to that of an unlikely hero for the marginalized and excluded in the twenty-first century. Drawing on literary and artistic representations, as well as medical, forensic, empirical, and sociopolitical perspectives, this rich and eerie history presents the vampire as a strikingly complex being that has been used to express the traumas and contradictions of the human condition.

The first book to explore the origins of the vampire slayer “A fascinating comparison of the original vampire myths to their later literary transformations.” —Adam Morton, author of On Evil “From the Balkan Mountains to Beverly Hills, Bruce has mapped the vampire’s migration. There’s no better guide for the trek.” —Jan L. Perkowski, Professor, Slavic Department, University of Virginia, and author of Vampires of the Slavs and The Darkling: A Treatise on Slavic Vampirism “The vampire slayer is our protector, our hero, our Buffy. But how much do we really know about him—or her? Very little, it turns out, and Bruce McClelland shows us why: because the vampire slayer is an unsettling figure, almost as disturbing as the evil she is set to destroy. Prepare to be frightened . . . and enlightened.” —Corey Robin, author of Fear: The History of a Political Idea “What is unique about this book is that it is the first of its kind to focus on the vampire hunter, rather than the vampire. As such, it makes a significant contribution to the field. This book will appeal to scholars and researchers of folklore, as well as anyone interested in the literature and popular culture of the vampire.” —Elizabeth Miller, author of Dracula and A Dracula Handbook “Shades of Van Helsing! Vampirologist extraordinaire Bruce McClelland has managed that rarest of feats: developing a radically new and thoroughly enlightening perspective on a topic of eternal fascination. Ranging from the icons of popular culture to previously overlooked details of Balkan and Slavic history and folk practice, he has rethought the borders of life and death, good and evil, saint and sinner, vampires and their slayers. Excellent scholarship, and a story that never flags.” —Bruce Lincoln, Caroline E. Haskell Professor of History of Religions, University of Chicago, and author of Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship,Authority: Construction and Corrosion, and Death, War, and Sacrifice: Studies in Ideology and Practice