Speaking of Calmet...

The previous entry briefly touched on the expense in purchasing original copies of Calmet's disserations.

Here's a perfect case in point:

The book, which is being sold by uofarkscott44 on eBay, isn't even one of the French originals (1746, 1749, 1751).

It appears to be a German, reprint translation of the second edition (1749) of Calmet's work. But this is hard to determine, as it appears that the seller appears to have cribbed the item's description...

Title details: Des hochwürdigen Herrn Augustini Calmet ... Gelehrte Verhandlung der Materi von Erscheinungen der Geisteren, und denen Vampiren in Ungarn, Mahren etc [microform] / Französisch beschreiben und in dieser Sprach zum Zweytenmal aufgelegt zu Einsidlen, Anno 1749. mit merckwürdigen Zusätzen, welche im Französischen nicht enthalten, sondern nach dessen Ubersetzung des Ubersetzer von dem hochwürdigen Herrn Authore in Zweymalen erst schrifftlich seynd übersandt worden, vermehrt ; die Nutzbarkeit des Wercks, und die darbey gehabte Absicht des Herrn Authoris ist aus seiner heinach stehenden Vorrede zur ersehen ; ins Teutsche übersetzt durch einen Preister Ord. S. Ben.

[ Dissertations zur les apparitions des anges, des démons & des esprits. German ]

[ Gelehrte Verhandlung der Materi von Erscheinungen der Geistern, und denen Vampiren in Ungarn, Mahren etc. ]

...from Open Library - right down to keeping the "microform" reference intact.

The Calmet biography that accompanies the item description, is clearly taken from Wikipedia, without citation.

It doesn't come without faults, either:

Pages: lacks the title page of the first volume, but is otherwise complete with all 416 pages for volume 1; the second part ends at page 214 and appears to be missing the last page; the book includes extensive indexes, preface, and such; generally free from marking or foxing;

I wish him all the best with his sale.

And I Thought They Were Pricey...

Yesterday, I gave coverage to the high price for J. Thomas Garza's The Vampire in Slavic Cultures (2009).

Previously, in "Two Recent Purchases", I mentioned that copies of Jan L. Perkowski's Vampires of the Slavs (1976) could go for as high as US $295.

Another pricey vampire book is Harry A. Senn's Were-Wolf and Vampire in Romania (1982), which Amazon is selling for US $250.

However, all those titles are completely dwarfed by the price for Alok Bhalla's Politics of Atrocity and Lust: The Vampire Tale as a Nightmare History of England in the Nineteenth Century (1990):

And the bloody thing's only 88 pages long!

Atrocity, indeed.

That essentially puts it in the same rank as original copies of Calmet's disserations.

How's that for perspective?

Bloody Hell!

Niels' blog is certainly a goldmine for vampire resources. For example, I purchased a copy of David Keysworth's Troublesome Corpses: Vampires and Revenants from Antiquity to the Present (2007), based on his recommendation.

And it's a great book.

His recent entry, "Vampires Among Us", depicted a book I had never heard of: The Vampire in Slavic Cultures.

I particularly relish books written on vampire folklore. There aren't nearly enough. It's also one of the reasons why Paul Barber's Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality (1988) is one of my favourite books.

Suffice it to say, I had to find this new book featured on Niels' blog.

Oh, I found it alright.

Turns out it's by J. Thomas Garza and was published in June, this year.

Amazon's asking price?

Yikes.

And that doesn't include shipping. Using XE - Universal Currency Converter, it means the asking price is 171.344 AUD (approx. AUD $171.35).

Ouch.

Nonetheless, I've added it to my Wish List.

Let's hope the price comes down. Significantly.

Nice to Meet You

Inspired by a mention in Niels' essay and my username change on Did a Wampyr Walk in Highgate?, I've decided to start using my real name on this blog, too.

Nice to meet ya!

Thanks Niels!

Niels' recent post, "A Weblog Approach", mentions the online publication of his contribution to a Vienna conference on vampirism.

His essay was titled, "Magia Posthuma: A Weblog Approach to the History of Central and Eastern European Vampire Cases of the 18th Century". You can read it, as a pdf file, here.

I was also quite pleased to see that both myself, and my blog, got a mention on page 4:

It [his blog -ed.] has also been an inspiration for other bloggers, including the so-called Amateur Vampirologist from Australia who mentioned »Niels K. Petersen's brilliant Magia Posthuma« as one of the sources of inspiration in his initial post to the blog Diary of an Amateur Vampirologist.

Indeed I did, in "Just a Quick One".

I am, of course, deeply flattered by Niels giving my blog a "shout out".

It continues to maintain its level of quality and insight into vampire research. An absolutely winning contribution to vampire fandom/scholarship.

However, I was somewhat amused to see his comments on negative experiences in writing his blog:

So far the blog has only experienced one slight case of harassment, by someone using the nom de plume »The Overseer«. The harassment included appropriating a portion of text from my blog, which was however removed on my request.

This rather shady character (who appropriated my username from Did a Wampyr Walk in Highgate?) happens to be a member of the Vampire Research Society.

I've provided coverage of that "Overseer" here and here.

The Problem with Abbreviations

I was having a browse for vampire books on eBay, when I came across this rather unfortunate entry:

It's actually an entry for Beverly Gray's Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers (Da Capo Press, 2003).

Its seller, rangerpaper, obviously tried to incorporate the book's entire title into the ad...with unintentional, amusing results!

You can buy your copy, today, for US $6.99! (not including postage)