For Whom the Bell Tolls

Have a read of Michael Bell's interview in The Believer's current issue.

Bell's best known for his 2001 work, Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England's Vampires. It's one I highly recommend, by the way.

Anyhoo, here's a snippet from the link:

THE BELIEVER: How do you know when you’ve found a real vampire?

MICHAEL BELL: Well, when you get familiar enough with the vampire tradition, there are certain cues and motifs—little narrative elements that stand out—and make you realize “OK, this is probably something I’m interested in because it’s similar to the vampire tradition,” and then there are other elements that seem to be directly from popular culture that don’t fit, and you can tell pretty quickly one from the other. Basically I look for cases where the people involved were dying from a specific condition—where they exhumed the bodies, what they did to the bodies—cutting out the heart, et cetera. Those are the things I’m looking for.

Sarah Ellen Roberts and the Birmingham Vampire

Speaking of mass hysteria, I thought it'd be fitting to share another, little-known episode in vampire history. This time, we go to Peru.

Here's a snippet from Stephen Smith's "Sarah Ellen Robers: The Blackburn Vampire":

The story starts at the beginning of June 1913, when 41 year Sarah Ellen Roberts, the wife of John Pryce Roberts, of 25 Isherwood-street was accused of murder and the practising of witchcraft. At her trial held at Blackburn she was found guilty and sentenced to death . . . Her punishment was that she should be chained and sealed alive in a lead lined coffin. The sentence was carried out on the 9th of June 1913. Just as the coffin lid was being put on she cursed and swore that she would return to avenge her self in 80 years time. When John tried to inter his wife’s body he found the church authorities had little sympathy for him and refused him permission to bury his wife in consecrated ground. John travelled the length and breadth of the country trying to find a resting place for his late wife but could find no one willing to accept the body. In desperation he set sail with the coffin in the hope of finding some country that would allow him to bury his late wife.

If you can read Portuguese (yeah, I know that's a longshot), then I'd also advise you check out Shirlei Massapust's "A Maldição de Sarah Ellen". At the very least, it's got a few pictures for your enjoyment.

A more recent example is the Case of the Birmingham Vampire, which is covered by Sam Jones' "Vampire Takes a Bite Out of Brum" and Stuart Jeffries' "Reality Bites".

Encyclopaedia Scoop!

I've heard rumblings about this one for a while now, so it gives me great pleasure to confirm that there's gonna be a third edition of J. Gordon Melton's The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead.

According to its Amazon listing, it's due for release on September 1, and it'll set you back a mere US $29.95 (not including postage).

The first edition was released in 1994, and even though its was preceded by Matthew Bunson's The Vampire Encyclopedia (1993), it's set the benchmark for subsequent vampire encyclopaedias.

Its popularity also saw several other similar works enter the market, and Melton, himself, followed it up with a second edition in 1999.

It capitalised on contemporary interest in Buffy and Blade and also greatly expanded entries on White Wolf's role-playing game, Vampire: The Masquerade. It even incorporated a listing of websites (811-813), probably one of the first vampire books to do so.

No doubt the third edition will cover the Twilight craze and shine a light on the vampire's integration into mainstream pop culture in the 11 years since the previous work was published.

Book Purchase Round-Up

Yesterday, two Amazon purchases arrived. Namely, Mark Collins Jenkins' Vampire Forensics: Uncovering the Origins of an Enduring Legend (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2010) and Claude Lecouteux's The Secret History of Vampires: Their Multiple Forms and Hidden Purposes (Rochester, Vermont/Toronto, Canada: Inner Traditions, 2010).

I've had 'em both on my Wish List for a while. Michele's review of Jenkins' book partly spurred me into finally buying it, and when I saw Lecouteux's book as its Amazonian "Frequently Bought Together" item, I thought "Oh, hell yeah!" and went ahead with the purchase.

Now, I wasn't expecting too much out of Jenkins' book, after all, it looks a little too glossy, for something of a scholarly nature. Well, at least, its cover does.

I thought it was gonna be a shiny, glossy thing, filled with lots of disturbing pics of dessicated corpses and whatnot, in light of its National Geographic pedigree. What it lacked in content, it'd make up for in visual "appeal".

Well, dear reader, I can tell you that it has bugger all pictures and I'm not overly thrilled about the content thus far, either. As of this writing, I'm up to page 76 and I haven't encountered much that I wouldn't find in other mainstream, run-of-the-mill works on the subject. It's the usual stroll through the same old, same old vampire stuff you've encountered a million times before (Vlad Ţepeş, Count Dracula, Arnold Paole, Polidori's "The Vampyre"), told in a narrative style.

At most, I'd say this book would be a passable, cursory introduction into the genre. It's also a pretty breezy read, so you'll work your way through it, quickly enough. But, from my reading thus far, there are waaay better books out there. Unless it turns a sharp corner into some meaty, scholarly stuff, can't say I'd really recommend this one.

I haven't started on Lecouteux's book, yet, but Niels' post on the possible inaccuracies of its translation, has given me cause for concern. I did point out, however, that he was working off a German translation of the original French book. As I mentioned, I actually own a copy of the original French version, but since I can't speak the language, I can hardly make comparisons of my own, heh heh.

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Today, I received Hagen Schaub's Blutspuren: Die Geschichte der Vampire (Graz: Leykam, 2008) in the post. I bought it from eBay after re-reading Niels' appraisal of it.

Again, I can't comment too much on its content, as I don't know the language, but it's surprising to see that a book covering the "magia posthuma" era, would only have fleeting mentions of Peter Plogojowitz (90) and Arnold Paole (91).

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Last Tuesday, I received another eBay purchase, that is, Tim Kane's The Changing Vampire of Film and Television: A Critical Study of the Growth of a Genre (Jefferson, North Carolina/London: McFarland & Comany, Inc., Publishers, 2006).

This one turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Its scope is admittedly narrow, as it focuses on the supernatural vampire variant in movies and only covers about 19 of 'em in total, but its application of genre "semantics" and "syntax" in correspondence with the evolution of the vampire's appearance, attributes and wards, in these mediums, is quite a fascinating concept.

Kane divides these films into eras: the Malignant Cycle (1931-1948), the Erotic Cycle (1957-1985) and the Sympathetic Cycle (1987- ). He even includes a Semantic-Syntactic Timeline (192-218), which is to die for.

Sure, a lot of what Kane covers has been said before, but never has it been boiled down, taken apart and articulated so well. Definitely recommended.

The Gorbals Vampire

Andrew gave me a heads-up on a largely neglected episode in vampire history.

It shows what happens when vampire rumours (much like the Highgate Case) spin out of control and take on a life of their own.

Stuart Nicolson's "Child Vampire Hunters Sparked Comic Crackdown" chronicles the events that lead to graveyard desecration in Glasgow, 1954, and a comic book witch hunt.

Critiquing Cheung

My eBay-ordered copy of Theresa Cheung's The Element Encyclopedia of Vampires (London: HarperElement, 2009) arrived in the post today. I featured it on my Amazon wishlist some time ago.

From cursory glances, let's say J. Gordon Melton can rest easy.

Take her Arnold Paole entry (445-448). She claims he was stationed in Greece when he was (allegedly) attacked by a vampire (446). Bzzzt. Wrong. He was actually stationed in Ottoman-occupied ("Turkish") Serbia.

She also uses a faulty source for her Peter Plogojowitz entry (454-456), the giveaway being that she states his death as being in September 1725 (455). Which is kinda strange, considering the Plogojowitz case was dealt with in the July 21, 1725 issue of the Wienerisches Diarium. Whoops!

A source on Polish vampirism is also misspelled, that is Everio Athiesm (462, 671), which is actually Eversio Atheismi seu pro Deo contra Atheos libri duo by Georgio Gengell (who she doesn't name).

I'm also disturbed by the fact that she includes an entry on Dr. Hugh Pecos (449). She says, "Although Pecos's knowledge of vampire lore, and the science of real vampires, is extensive he remains a controversial figure, and the FVZA has frequently been dismissed by historians and researchers as a fictional organization."

Well, Theresa, that's because it is a fictional organization.

Let's keep in mind that the Federal Vampire & Zombie Agency (FVZA) claims to have been founded by Ulysses S. Grant, as a governmental department for the eradication of vampires and zombies in the US. If this wasn't enough to make one suspicious of their claims, there's always the "Disclaimer" on their homepage:

This site is is fictional and is for entertainment purposes only. We are not affiliated with the U.S. Government in any way. Under no cirumstances are you to harm anyone based on information from this site.

If that doesn't solve that little "mystery", I dunno what will.

So, to sum up, don't buy this book expecting a scholarly guide to vampires. Quite a shame, in light of its extensive list of entries, a pretty good bibliography (659-662) and a sizable index (665-685).

Let's hope Theresa Bane's Encyclopedia of Vampire Mythology (2010) proves to be a lot more fruitful.

Lastly, you can read Niels' review of Cheung's book here. His criticisms are a lot more thorough.

Sorting Out Buffy Bugs

As mentioned, I had a word to greener_books_london about the unholy price they were asking for that Buffy book.

Here's what they wrote back (Tuesday, 9 March 2010 8:20:22 PM):

Dear Hogg,

Thank you for your email; this is a software error and we are working to get
it fixed

Kind regards,
The Greener Books team

As of this writing, they still seem to be working on it: