Especially fascinating are excerpts from materials that Bram Stoker consulted in his research for the book, and his working papers over the several years he was composing it. The selection of criticism includes essays on how Dracula deals with female sexuality, gender inversion, homoerotic elements, and Victorian fears of ''reverse colonization'' by politically turbulent Transylvania. This pioneering study, first published in 1972, became a collector's item, so this fully updated edition is welcome indeed. In Search of Dracula is also an entertaining introduction to vampire lore and to people's obsession with Dracula. It has a delightful cover by Edward Gorey and numerous illustrations, including antique woodcuts of Vlad's impaled victims and photos from the authors' trips to Romania.
Vampires are the most fearsome and fascinating of all creatures of folklore.
For the first time, detailed accounts of the vampire and how its tradition developed in different cultures are gathered in one volume by eminent folklorist Alan Dundes. Eleven leading scholars from the fields of Slavic studies, history, anthropology, and psychiatry unearth the true nature of the vampire from its birth in graveyard lore to the modern-day psychiatric patient with a penchant for drinking blood. A Casebook takes this legend out of the realm of literature and film and back to its dark beginnings in folk traditions. Much more than simply a scary creature of the human imagination, the vampire has been and continues to haunt the lives of all those who encounter it-in reality or in fiction. In approximately 2,000 entries, from Hades to Hematomania to Lycanthropy and Lugosi, The Vampire Encyclopedia tells readers virtually everything they could possibly want to know about vampires.