The Vampire: A New History

About this book

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 Polidoris publication of The Vampyre Nick Grooms 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 humankinds 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.