Reviews for History of Vampires

The average rating for History of Vampires based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-02-08 00:00:00 Hugh Smith A book about vampires published in 1987 written by an author who died in 1949. Sadly, that is amongst the most interesting fact surrounding or in this book. The book appears to be an amalgamation of two of the author's works on the subject (one published in 1914 and one sometime after 1923) which led to certain paragraphs being repeated. Most of the book is giving historical accounts of "vampire" activity but finding a way to make these stories repetitive. The author notes that at time of publication that there were very few vampire stories in literature. That gives some indication of how long ago it was written (and Dracula had had only one stage performance in 1897 and no movies dedicated to him by the time the first book was published.) I am assuming that the stories of vampirism over the centuries could be shocking to the audience of the time but they really do seem pale in comparison to many more modern stories. The book has value as a historical document on early 20th century study methods and the occult. It just is not a read I could recommend to anyone who isn't a scholar and who needs to read it for research. It is repetitive and dull.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-07-08 00:00:00 Larry Turner A fascinating book for those who bear more than a passing interest in vampire lore. Wright assembles stories and legends from around the world, dating back to times when cultures had little or no means of interacting with each other and sharing stories. This suggests that the vampire is a human archetype, a way of processing death that supersedes culture and language. The dead need to stay dead, so we invented the vampire to integrate death as part of the natural order of events, by showing what it looks like when that order is subverted. It must have really freaked people out when their loved-ones' bodies sat up after a day or two of being dead because the muscles in the abdomen tighten naturally as part of rigor mortis. I could see the vampire springing up in a thousand places just from this fact alone. Anyway, this is a really interesting book. Dudley Wright is probably the leading authority in this odd branch of science and history.