Vampire Book Covers

I've found that eBay isn't just a boon for buying hard-to-get vampire books, but also a decent source for vampire book cover images.

The following dust jacket cover is reproduced in this sale for a fiction anthology, Tales of the Undead: Vampires and Visitants (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1947), collected and illustrated by Elinore Blaisdell:


As it happens, I own a copy of this book, sans dust jacket. Never even knew what its dust jacket looked like.

Till now.

Instead, I've had to contend with this cover (which was also reproduced by the seller):


Incidentally, the seller's asking price is US $39.99.

Proposed Vampire Tour

Forget Transylvania as Vampire Central. To me, the true home of vampires is Serbia.

Afterall, it is the homeland of Peter Plogojowitz and Arnod Paole, two of the eighteenth century's most notorious undead. If it wasn't for the reports of their exhumations and their subsequent media coverage, we wouldn't have the dearth of vampire literature (both fictional and otherwise) we do today.

So, Niels' most recent posting on a proposed vampire tour is not without interest. Of course, it's not something I'd personally be able to afford, but, if you can, I'd highly recommend tagging along.

He's currently seeking interested persons. If you're one of 'em, drop him a line.

The Wright Book for You

I've just come across an interesting sale on eBay, courtesy of this seller.

You can snap up a copy of Dudley Wright's Vampires and Vampirism (rev. ed., 1924) for US$160.


I'd buy it myself if I had the available fundage!

From a critical perspective, the work is pretty shabby (you can get a variety of reprints of this book, to see for yourself), but it still serves as one of the seminal entries in vampires studies of the twentieth century.

The original edition was published in 1914 and helped filled a gap in vampire studies at the time, which was primarily occupied by occultic articles and works like A. Osbourne Eaves' Modern Vampirism: Its Dangers, and How to Avoid Them (1904), a treatise on psychic vampirism.

Montague Summers was brutal in his review of Wright's work, noting

it were not an easy task to find a more insipid olio than Vampires and Vampirism, of which the ingredients, so far as I am able to judge, are most palpably derived at second, and even at third hand.

But one wonders if Summers would have made his own contributions to the genre, if it hadn't been for Wright stepping up to the plate.

O Canada!

Sometimes I feel like it'd be quicker for the Canadian postal service to strap deliveries on the back of a Galápagos tortoise, than to follow their usual procedures.

I paid for a copy of François Ribadeau Dumas' A la recherche des vampires (1976) from an eBay seller in Quebec on October 7, 2009.

I received the item today. It's not the first time I've experienced such delays with their postal service.

New Years' Wishes

Wishing all my readers a safe and joyous New Year as we move on from the Noughties and into...the Noughteens!

Thanks for your comments, contributions and correspondence. As I've said before, couldn't do it without ya!

And remember kids, if you're gonna have a night out on the tiles, drink responsibly.

The Q & A Sessions

Last night, I joined WikiAnswers, which bills itself as the "world's leading Q & A site".

The concept of the site is quite simple: users ask questions on various topics and other users attempt to answer them.

Obviously, my focus has been on the vampire side of things. You can read my contributions here.

I'll cite one such example: a user asked "Did Edgar Allan Poe have vampires in his stories?" To which, I replied:

Not in the traditional sense of the term, but a few of his stories did feature vampiric overtones. These include "Berenice" (1835), "Ligeia" (1838), "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839) and "The Oval Portrait" (1842).

A few of these are collected in the anthology, Dead Brides: Vampire Tales (1999).

Manly Wade Wellman featured Poe as a character in his short vampire story, "When It Was Moonlight" (1940).

Vampirologists on YouTube

Vampirologists don't get much coverage on YouTube for some reason.

In fact, as of this writing, there are only two clips featuring them (at least ones that specifically include the term "vampirologist").

The first is an episode of German game show, Sag die Wahrheit. The panelists have to decide which of the three guests is vampire expert, Hans Meurer.

The second clip features Brazilian, Teodore Stille, billed as "probably todays most important scholar in vampirology on the world." I am somewhat skeptical of this claim.

A search for his name on Google only turns up 8 references to his name - and they're all connected to this clip. The bio accompanying the video also seems a tad suspect:

He was born in upstate Rio de Janeiro, he was raised and spent his teenage years in Romenia, where he begun his education in vampirology. Dr. Stille graduated at Bucarovia University and earned his Ph.D. at the most important vampirology academy in Brasilia, Brazil. Dr. Teodoro Stille travels around the world doing speeches and workshops.

Surely, a vampire scholar of this calibre would have wider representation on the 'net?

Meurer's "credentials" on the other hand, are much more easily verified. He is the author of several works concerning the undead.