The Fantastic Vampire: Studies in the Children of the Night Selected Essays from the Eighteenth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts Horror Book Review

Wherever vampires existed in the imaginations of different peoples, they adapted themselves to the customs of the local culture. In The Vampyre (1819), John Polidori introduced Lord Ruthven and established the vampire craze of the 19th century that resulted in a flood of German vampire poetry, French vampire drama, and British vampire fiction. That tradition culminated in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), which fixed the character of the Transylvanian nobleman firmly in the public imagination. The contributors to this volume examine representations of the vampire in fiction, film, folklore, and popular culture. While some look at Stoker and the early literary vampire, others study the works of contemporary writers, such as Anne Rice and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, vampirism as a metaphor for AIDS, and racial issues in such films as Blacula and Vampire in Brooklyn.