Etymology
The word ''vampire'' (as ''vampyre'') first appeared in English in 1732, in news reports about vampire "epidemics" in eastern Europe. After Austria gained control of northernFolk beliefs
The notion of vampirism has existed for millennia. Cultures such as theDescription and common attributes
It is difficult to make a single, definitive description of the folkloric vampire, though there are several elements common to many European legends. Vampires were usually reported as bloated in appearance, and ruddy, purplish, or dark in colour; these characteristics were often attributed to the recent drinking of blood, which was often seen seeping from the mouth and nose when one was seen in its shroud or coffin, and its left eye was often open. It would be clad in the linen shroud it was buried in, and its teeth, hair, and nails may have grown somewhat, though in general fangs were not a feature. Chewing sounds were reported emanating from graves.Creating vampires
The causes of vampiric generation were many and varied in original folklore. In Slavic and= Prevention
= Cultural practices often arose that were intended to prevent a recently deceased loved one from turning into an undead revenant. Burying a corpse upside-down was widespread, as was placing earthly objects, such asIdentifying vampires
Many rituals were used to identify a vampire. One method of finding a vampire's grave involved leading a virgin boy through a graveyard or church grounds on a virgin stallion—the horse would supposedly balk at the grave in question. Generally a black horse was required, though in Albania it should be white. Holes appearing in the earth over a grave were taken as a sign of vampirism. Corpses thought to be vampires were generally described as having a healthier appearance than expected, plump and showing little or no signs of decomposition. In some cases, when suspected graves were opened, villagers even described the corpse as having fresh blood from a victim all over its face. Evidence that a vampire was active in a given locality included death of cattle, sheep, relatives or neighbours. Folkloric vampires could also make their presence felt by engaging in minor poltergeist-styled activity, such as hurling stones on roofs or moving household objects, and pressing on people in their sleep.Protection
Apotropaics—items able to ward off revenants—are common in vampire folklore. Garlic is a common example, a branch of wild rose and hawthorn are sometimes associated with causing harm to vampires, and in Europe, sprinkling mustard seeds on the roof of a house was used to keep them away. Other apotropaics include sacred items, such asMethods of destruction
Methods of destroying suspected vampires varied, with staking the most commonly cited method, particularly in South Slavic cultures. Ash was the preferred wood in Russia and the Baltic states, or hawthorn in Serbia, with a record ofAncient beliefs
Tales of supernatural beings consuming the blood or flesh of the living have been found in nearly every culture around the world for many centuries. The term ''vampire'' did not exist in ancient times. Blood drinking and similar activities were attributed to demons or spirits who would eat flesh and drink blood; even theMedieval and later European folklore
Many myths surrounding vampires originated during the Middle Ages, medieval period. The 12th-century British historians and chroniclers Walter Map and William of Newburgh recorded accounts of revenants, though records in English legends of vampiric beings after this date are scant. The Scandinavian folklore, Old Norse ''draugr'' is another medieval example of an undead creature with similarities to vampires. Vampiric beings were rarely written about in Jewish literature; the 16th-century rabbi David ben Solomon ibn Abi Zimra (Radbaz) wrote of an uncharitable old woman whose body was unguarded and unburied for three days after she died and rose as a vampiric entity, killing hundreds of people. He linked this event to the lack of a ''shemira, shmirah'' (guarding) after death as the corpse could be a vessel for evil spirits. In 1645, the Greek librarian of the Vatican, Leo Allatius, produced the first methodological description of the Balkan beliefs in vampires (Greek: vrykolakas) in his work ''De Graecorum hodie quorundam opinationibus'' ("On certain modern opinions among the Greeks"). Vampires properly originating in folklore were widely reported from Eastern Europe in the late 17th and 18th centuries. These tales formed the basis of the vampire legend that later entered Germany and England, where they were subsequently embellished and popularized. An early recording of the time came from the region of Istria in modern Croatia, in 1672; Local reports described a panic among the villagers inspired by the belief that Jure Grando had become a vampire after dying in 1656, drinking blood from victims and sexually harassing his widow. The village leader ordered a stake to be driven through his heart. Later, his corpse was also beheaded. From 1679, Philippe Rohr devotes an essay to the dead who chew their shrouds in their graves, a subject resumed by Otto in 1732, and then by Michael Ranft in 1734. The subject was based on the observation that when digging up graves, it was discovered that some corpses had at some point either devoured the interior fabric of their coffin or their own limbs. Ranft described in his treatise of a tradition in some parts of Germany, that to prevent the dead from masticating they placed a mound of dirt under their chin in the coffin, placed a piece of money and a stone in the mouth, or tied a handkerchief tightly around the throat. In 1732 an anonymous writer writing as "the doctor Weimar" discusses the non-putrefaction of these creatures, from a theological point of view. In 1733, Johann Christoph Harenberg wrote a general treatise on vampirism and the Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens, Marquis d'Argens cites local cases. Theologians and clergymen also address the topic. Some theological disputes arose. The non-decay of vampires' bodies could recall the incorruption of the bodies of the saints of the Catholic Church. A paragraph on vampires was included in the second edition (1749) of ''De servorum Dei beatificatione et sanctorum canonizatione'', On the beatification of the servants of God and on canonization of the blessed, written by Prospero Lambertini (Pope Benedict XIV). In his opinion, while the incorruptibility, incorruption of the bodies of saints was the effect of a divine intervention, all the phenomena attributed to vampires were purely natural or the fruit of "imagination, terror and fear". In other words, vampires did not exist.18th-century vampire controversy
During the 18th century, there was a frenzy of vampire sightings in Eastern Europe, with frequent stakings and grave diggings to identify and kill the potential revenants. Even government officials engaged in the hunting and staking of vampires. Despite being called the Age of Enlightenment, during which most folkloric legends were quelled, the belief in vampires increased dramatically, resulting in a mass hysteria throughout most of Europe. The panic began with an outbreak of alleged vampire attacks in East Prussia in 1721 and in the Habsburg monarchy from 1725 to 1734, which spread to other localities. Two infamous vampire cases, the first to be officially recorded, involved the corpses of Petar Blagojevich and Miloš Čečar from Serbia. Blagojevich was reported to have died at the age of 62, but allegedly returned after his death asking his son for food. When the son refused, he was found dead the following day. Blagojevich supposedly returned and attacked some neighbours who died from loss of blood. In the second case, Miloš, an ex-soldier-turned-farmer who allegedly was attacked by a vampire years before, died while haying. After his death, people began to die in the surrounding area and it was widely believed that Miloš had returned to prey on the neighbours. Another infamous Serbian vampire legend recounts the story of a certain Sava Savanović, who lives in a watermill and kills and drinks blood from the millers. The character was later used in a story written by Serbian writer Milovan Glišić and in the Yugoslav 1973 horror film ''Leptirica'' inspired by the story. The two incidents were well-documented. Government officials examined the bodies, wrote case reports, and published books throughout Europe. The hysteria, commonly referred to as the "18th-Century Vampire Controversy", continued for a generation. The problem was exacerbated by rural epidemics of so-called vampire attacks, undoubtedly caused by the higher amount of superstition that was present in village communities, with locals digging up bodies and in some cases, staking them. Antoine Augustine Calmet, Dom Augustine Calmet, a French theologian and scholar, published a comprehensive treatise in 1751 titled ''Traité sur les apparitions des esprits et sur les vampires ou les revenans de Hongrie, de Moravie, &c., Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants'' which investigated and analysed the evidence for vampirism. Numerous readers, including both a critical Voltaire and numerous supportive Demonology, demonologists interpreted the treatise as claiming that vampires existed. The controversy in Austria ceased when Empress Maria Theresa sent her personal physician, Gerard van Swieten, to investigate the claims of vampiric entities. He concluded that vampires did not exist and the Empress passed laws prohibiting the opening of graves and desecration of bodies, ending the vampire epidemics. Other European countries followed suit. Despite this condemnation, the vampire lived on in artistic works and in local folklore.Non-European beliefs
Beings having many of the attributes of European vampires appear in the folklore of Africa, Asia, North and South America, and India. Classified as vampires, all share the thirst for blood.Africa
Various regions of Africa have folktales featuring beings with vampiric abilities: in West Africa the Ashanti people tell of the iron-toothed and tree-dwelling ''asanbosam'', and the Ewe people of the ''adze (folklore), adze,'' which can take the form of a firefly and hunts children. The eastern Cape Peninsula, Cape region has the ''impundulu,'' which can take the form of a large taloned bird and can summon thunder and lightning, and the Betsileo people of Madagascar tell of the ''ramanga'', an outlaw or living vampire who drinks the blood and eats the nail clippings of nobles. In colonial East Africa, rumors circulated to the effect that employees of the state such as firemen and nurses were vampires, known in Swahili as ''wazimamoto''.Americas
The ''Soucouyant, Loogaroo'' is an example of how a vampire belief can result from a combination of beliefs, here a mixture of French and African Vodu or West African Vodun, voodoo. The term ''Loogaroo'' possibly comes from the French ''Werewolf, loup-garou'' (meaning "werewolf") and is common in the culture of Mauritius. The stories of the ''Loogaroo'' are widespread through the Caribbean Islands and Louisiana in the United States. Similar female monsters are the ''Soucouyant'' of Trinidad, and the ''Tunda'' and ''Patasola'' of Colombian folklore, while the Mapuche of southern Chile have the bloodsucking snake known as the ''Peuchen''. ''Aloe vera'' hung backwards behind or near a door was thought to ward off vampiric beings in South American folklore. Aztec mythology described tales of the Cihuateteo, skull-faced spirits of those who died in childbirth who stole children and entered into sexual liaisons with the living, driving them mad. During the late 18th and 19th centuries the belief in vampires was New England vampire panic, widespread in parts of New England, particularly in Rhode Island and eastern Connecticut. There are many documented cases of families disinterring loved ones and removing their hearts in the belief that the deceased was a vampire who was responsible for sickness and death in the family, although the term "vampire" was never used to describe the dead. The deadly disease tuberculosis, or "consumption" as it was known at the time, was believed to be caused by nightly visitations on the part of a dead family member who had died of consumption themselves. The most famous, and most recently recorded, case of suspected vampirism is that of nineteen-year-old Mercy Brown vampire incident, Mercy Brown, who died in Exeter, Rhode Island in 1892. Her father, assisted by the family physician, removed her from her tomb two months after her death, cut out her heart and burned it to ashes.Asia
Vampires have appeared in Cinema of Japan, Japanese cinema since the late 1950s; the folklore behind it is western in origin. The Rokurokubi#Nukekubi, Nukekubi is a being whose head and neck detach from its body to fly about seeking human prey at night. Legends of female vampiric beings who can detach parts of their upper body also occur in the Philippine mythology, Philippines, Malay folklore, Malaysia, and Folklore of Indonesia, Indonesia. There are two main vampiric creatures in the Philippines: the Tagalog people, Tagalog ''Mandurugo'' ("blood-sucker") and the Visayan ''Manananggal'' ("self-segmenter"). The mandurugo is a variety of the aswang that takes the form of an attractive girl by day, and develops wings and a long, hollow, threadlike tongue by night. The tongue is used to suck up blood from a sleeping victim. The ''manananggal'' is described as being an older, beautiful woman capable of severing its upper torso in order to fly into the night with huge batlike wings and prey on unsuspecting, sleeping pregnant women in their homes. They use an elongated proboscislike tongue to suck fetuses from these pregnant women. They also prefer to eat entrails (specifically the heart and the liver) and the phlegm of sick people. The Malaysian ''Penanggalan'' is a woman who obtained her beauty through the active use of black magic or other unnatural means, and is most commonly described in local folklore to be dark or demonic in nature. She is able to detach her fanged head which flies around in the night looking for blood, typically from pregnant women. Malaysians hung ''jeruju'' (thistles) around the doors and windows of houses, hoping the ''Penanggalan'' would not enter for fear of catching its intestines on the thorns. The Leyak is a similar being from Balinese mythology, Balinese folklore of Indonesia. A ''Pontianak (folklore), Kuntilanak'' or ''Matianak'' in Indonesia, or ''Pontianak (folklore), Pontianak'' or ''Langsuyar, Langsuir'' in Malaysia, is a woman who Maternal mortality in fiction, died during childbirth and became undead, seeking revenge and terrorising villages. She appeared as an attractive woman with long black hair that covered a hole in the back of her neck, with which she sucked the blood of children. Filling the hole with her hair would drive her off. Corpses had their mouths filled with glass beads, eggs under each armpit, and needles in their palms to prevent them from becoming ''langsuir.'' This description would also fit the Sundel bolong, Sundel Bolongs. In Vietnam, the word used to translate Western vampires, "ma cà rồng", originally referred to a type of demon that haunts modern-day Phú Thọ Province, within the communities of the Tai Dam Ethnic minorities of Vietnam, ethnic minority. The word was first mentioned in the chronicles of 18th-century Confucianism, Confucian scholar Lê Quý Đôn, who spoke of a creature that lives among humans, but stuffs its toes into its nostrils at night and flies by its ears into houses with pregnant women to suck their blood. Having fed on these women, the ''ma cà rồng'' then returns to its house and cleans itself by dipping its toes into barrels of Biancaea sappan, sappanwood water. This allows the ''ma cà rồng'' to live undetected among humans during the day, before heading out to attack again by night. Jiangshi, sometimes called "Chinese vampires" by Westerners, are reanimated corpses that hop around, killing living creatures to absorb life essence (qi, qì) from their victims. They are said to be created when a person's soul (魄 Hun and po, ''pò'') fails to leave the deceased's body. ''Jiangshi'' are usually represented as mindless creatures with no independent thought. This monster has greenish-white furry skin, perhaps derived from fungus or Mold (fungus), mould growing on corpses. Jiangshi legends have inspired a Jiangshi fiction, genre of jiangshi films and literature in Hong Kong and East Asia. Films like ''Encounters of the Spooky Kind'' and ''Mr. Vampire'' were released during the jiangshi cinematic boom of the 1980s and 1990s.Modern beliefs
In modern fiction, the vampire tends to be depicted as a suave, charismatic villain. Vampire hunting societies still exist, but they are largely formed for social reasons. Allegations of vampire attacks swept through Malawi during late 2002 and early 2003, with mobs stoning one person to death and attacking at least four others, including Governor Eric Chiwaya, based on the belief that the government was colluding with vampires. Fears and violence recurred in late 2017, with 6 people accused of being vampires killed. In early 1970, local press spread rumours that a vampire haunted Highgate Cemetery in London. Amateur vampire hunters flocked in large numbers to the cemetery. Several books have been written about the case, notably by Sean Manchester, a local man who was among the first to suggest the existence of the "Highgate Vampire" and who later claimed to have exorcism, exorcised and destroyed a whole nest of vampires in the area. In January 2005, rumours circulated that an attacker had bitten a number of people in Birmingham, England, fuelling concerns about a vampire roaming the streets. Local police stated that no such crime had been reported and that the case appears to be an urban legend. The ''Origins of vampire beliefs
Commentators have offered many theories for the origins of vampire beliefs and relatedPathology
Decomposition
Author Paul Barber stated that belief in vampires resulted from people of pre-industrial society, pre-industrial societies attempting to explain the natural, but to them inexplicable, process of death and decomposition. People sometimes suspected vampirism when a cadaver did not look as they thought a normal corpse should when disinterred. Rates of decomposition vary depending on temperature and soil composition, and many of the signs are little known. This has led vampire hunters to mistakenly conclude that a dead body had not decomposed at all or to interpret signs of decomposition as signs of continued life. Corpses swell as gases from decomposition accumulate in the torso and the increased pressure forces blood to ooze from the nose and mouth. This causes the body to look "plump", "well-fed", and "ruddy"—changes that are all the more striking if the person was pale or thin in life. In the Arnold Paole, Arnold Paole case, an old woman's exhumed corpse was judged by her neighbours to look more plump and healthy than she had ever looked in life. The exuding blood gave the impression that the corpse had recently been engaging in vampiric activity. Darkening of the skin is also caused by decomposition. The staking of a swollen, decomposing body could cause the body to bleed and force the accumulated gases to escape the body. This could produce a groan-like sound when the gases moved past the vocal cords, or a sound reminiscent of flatulence when they passed through the anus. The official reporting on the Petar Blagojevich case speaks of "other wild signs which I pass by out of high respect". After death, the skin and gums lose fluids and contract, exposing the roots of the hair, nails, and teeth, even teeth that were concealed in the jaw. This can produce the illusion that the hair, nails, and teeth have grown. At a certain stage, the nails fall off and the skin peels away, as reported in the Blagojevich case—the dermis and Nail bed (anatomy), nail beds emerging underneath were interpreted as "new skin" and "new nails".Premature burial
Vampire legends may have also been influenced by individuals being Premature burial, buried alive because of shortcomings in the medical knowledge of the time. In some cases in which people reported sounds emanating from a specific coffin, it was later dug up and fingernail marks were discovered on the inside from the victim trying to escape. In other cases the person would hit their heads, noses or faces and it would appear that they had been "feeding". A problem with this theory is the question of how people presumably buried alive managed to stay alive for any extended period without food, water or fresh air. An alternate explanation for noise is the bubbling of escaping gases from natural decomposition of bodies. Another likely cause of disordered tombs is grave robbery.Disease
Folkloric vampirism has been associated with clusters of deaths from unidentifiable or mysterious illnesses, usually within the same family or the same small community. The epidemic allusion is obvious in the classical cases of Petar Blagojevich and Arnold Paole, and even more so in the case of Mercy Brown vampire incident, Mercy Brown and in the vampire beliefs of New England generally, where a specific disease, tuberculosis, was associated with outbreaks of vampirism. As with the pneumonic form of bubonic plague, it was associated with breakdown of lung tissue which would cause blood to appear at the lips. In 1985, biochemist David Dolphin proposed a link between the rare blood disorder porphyria and vampire folklore. Noting that the condition is treated by intravenous heme, haem, he suggested that the consumption of large amounts of blood may result in haem being transported somehow across the stomach wall and into the bloodstream. Thus vampires were merely sufferers of porphyria seeking to replace haem and alleviate their symptoms. The theory has been rebuffed medically as suggestions that porphyria sufferers crave the haem in human blood, or that the consumption of blood might ease the symptoms of porphyria, are based on a misunderstanding of the disease. Furthermore, Dolphin was noted to have confused fictional (bloodsucking) vampires with those of folklore, many of whom were not noted to drink blood. Similarly, a parallel is made between sensitivity to sunlight by sufferers, yet this was associated with fictional and not folkloric vampires. In any case, Dolphin did not go on to publish his work more widely. Despite being dismissed by experts, the link gained media attention and entered popular modern folklore. Juan Gómez-Alonso, a neurologist, examined the possible link of rabies with vampire folklore. The susceptibility to garlic and light could be due to hypersensitivity, which is a symptom of rabies. It can also affect portions of the brain that could lead to disturbance of normal sleep patterns (thus becoming nocturnal) and hypersexuality. Legend once said a man was not rabid if he could look at his own reflection (an allusion to the legend that vampires have no reflection). Wolf, Wolves and bats, which are often associated with vampires, can be carriers of rabies. The disease can also lead to a drive to bite others and to a bloody frothing at the mouth.Psychodynamic theories
In his 1931 treatise ''On the Nightmare'', Welsh psychoanalysis, psychoanalyst Ernest Jones asserted that vampires are symbolic of several unconscious drives and defence mechanisms. Emotions such as love, guilt, and hate fuel the idea of the return of the dead to the grave. Desiring a reunion with loved ones, mourners may psychological projection, project the idea that the recently dead must in return yearn the same. From this arises the belief that folkloric vampires and revenants visit relatives, particularly their spouses, first. In cases where there was unconscious guilt associated with the relationship, the wish for reunion may be subverted by anxiety. This may lead to Repression (psychoanalysis), repression, which Sigmund Freud had linked with the development of morbid dread. Jones surmised in this case the original wish of a (sexual) reunion may be drastically changed: desire is replaced by fear; love is replaced by sadism, and the object or loved one is replaced by an unknown entity. The sexual aspect may or may not be present. Some modern critics have proposed a simpler theory: People identify with immortal vampires because, by so doing, they overcome, or at least temporarily escape from, their Death anxiety, fear of dying. Jones linked the innate sexuality of bloodsucking with cannibalism, with a folkloric connection with incubus-like behaviour. He added that when more normal aspects of sexuality are repressed, regressed forms may be expressed, in particular Sadistic personality disorder#Freud and psychoanalysis, sadism; he felt that Psychosexual development#Oral stage, oral sadism is integral in vampiric behaviour.Political interpretations
The reinvention of the vampire myth in the modern era is not without political overtones. The aristocratic Count Dracula, alone in his castle apart from a few demented retainers, appearing only at night to feed on his peasantry, is symbolic of the parasitic ''ancien régime''. In his entry for "Vampires" in the ''Dictionnaire philosophique'' (1764), Voltaire notices how the mid-18th century coincided with the decline of the folkloric belief in the existence of vampires but that now "there were stock-jobbers, brokers, and men of business, who sucked the blood of the people in broad daylight; but they were not dead, though corrupted. These true suckers lived not in cemeteries, but in very agreeable palaces". Marx defined capital as "dead labour which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks". Werner Herzog, in his ''Nosferatu the Vampyre'', gives this political interpretation an extra ironic twist when protagonist Jonathan Harker, a middle-class solicitor, becomes the next vampire; in this way the capitalist bourgeois becomes the next parasitic class.Psychopathology
A number of murderers have performed seemingly vampiric rituals upon their victims. Serial killers Peter Kürten and Richard Trenton Chase were both called "vampires" in the tabloid journalism, tabloids after they were discovered drinking the blood of the people they murdered. In 1932, an unsolved murder case in Stockholm, Sweden, was nicknamed the "Atlas Vampire, Vampire murder", because of the circumstances of the victim's death. The late-16th-century Hungarian countess and mass murderess Elizabeth Báthory became infamous in later centuries' works, which depicted her bathing in her victims' blood to retain beauty or youth.Vampire bats
Although many cultures have stories about them, vampire bats have only recently become an integral part of the traditional vampire lore. Vampire bats were integrated into vampire folklore after they were discovered on the South American mainland in the 16th century. There are no vampire bats in Europe, but bats and owls have long been associated with the supernatural and omens, mainly because of their nocturnal habits. The three species of vampire bats are all Endemism, endemic to Latin America, and there is no evidence to suggest that they had any Old World relatives within human memory. It is therefore impossible that the folkloric vampire represents a distorted presentation or memory of the vampire bat. The bats were named after the folkloric vampire rather than vice versa; the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' records their folkloric use in English from 1734 and the zoological not until 1774. The danger of rabies infection aside, the vampire bat's bite is usually not harmful to a person, but the bat has been known to actively feed on humans and large prey such as cattle and often leaves the trademark, two-prong bite mark on its victim's skin. The literary Count Dracula, Dracula transforms into a bat several times in the novel, and vampire bats themselves are mentioned twice in it. The 1927 stage production of ''Dracula'' followed the novel in having Dracula turn into a bat, as did the Dracula (1931 English-language film), film, where Béla Lugosi would transform into a bat. The bat transformation scene was used again by Lon Chaney, Jr., Lon Chaney Jr. in 1943's ''Son of Dracula (1943 film), Son of Dracula''.In modern culture
The vampire is now a fixture in popular fiction. Such fiction began with 18th-century poetry and continued with 19th-century short stories, the first and most influential of which was John Polidori's "Literature
The vampire or revenant first appeared in poems such as ''The Vampire'' (1748) by Heinrich August Ossenfelder, ''Lenore (ballad), Lenore'' (1773) by Gottfried August Bürger, ''Die Braut von Corinth'' (''The Bride of Corinth'') (1797) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Robert Southey's ''Thalaba the Destroyer'' (1801), John Stagg (poet), John Stagg's "The Vampyre" (1810), Percy Bysshe Shelley's Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson, "The Spectral Horseman" (1810) ("Nor a yelling vampire reeking with gore") and "Ballad" in ''St. Irvyne'' (1811) about a reanimated corpse, Sister Rosa, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's unfinished ''Christabel (poem), Christabel'' and Lord Byron's ''The Giaour''. Byron was also credited with the first prose fiction piece concerned with vampires: "The Vampyre" (1819). This was in reality authored by Byron's personal physician, John Polidori, who adapted an enigmatic fragmentary tale of his illustrious patient, "Fragment of a Novel" (1819), also known as "The Burial: A Fragment". Byron's own dominating personality, mediated by his lover Lady Caroline Lamb in her unflattering ''roman-a-clef'' ''Glenarvon'' (a Gothic fantasia based on Byron's wild life), was used as a model for Polidori's undead protagonist Lord Ruthven (vampire), Lord Ruthven. ''The Vampyre'' was highly successful and the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century. ''Varney the Vampire'' was a popular mid-Victorian era Gothic fiction, gothic horror story by James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest, which first appeared from 1845 to 1847 in a series of pamphlets generally referred to as ''penny dreadfuls'' because of their low price and gruesome contents. Published in book form in 1847, the story runs to 868 double-columned pages. It has a distinctly suspenseful style, using vivid imagery to describe the horrifying exploits of Varney. Another important addition to the genre was Sheridan Le Fanu's lesbian vampire story '' Carmilla'' (1871). Like Varney before her, the vampiress Carmilla is portrayed in a somewhat sympathetic light as the compulsion of her condition is highlighted. No effort to depict vampires in popular fiction was as influential or as definitive as Bram Stoker's ''Dracula'' (1897). Its portrayal of vampirism as a disease of contagious demonic possession, with its undertones of sex, blood and death, struck a chord in Victorian era, Victorian Europe where tuberculosis and syphilis were common. The vampiric traits described in Stoker's work merged with and dominated folkloric tradition, eventually evolving into the modern fictional vampire. Drawing on past works such as ''The Vampyre'' and ''Carmilla'', Stoker began to research his new book in the late 19th century, reading works such as ''The Land Beyond the Forest'' (1888) by Emily Gerard and other books about Transylvania and vampires. In London, a colleague mentioned to him the story of Vlad the Impaler, Vlad Ţepeş, the "real-life Dracula", and Stoker immediately incorporated this story into his book. The first chapter of the book was omitted when it was published in 1897, but it was released in 1914 as "Dracula's Guest". The latter part of the 20th century saw the rise of multi-volume vampire epics as well as a renewed interest in the subject in books. The first of these was Gothic romance writer Marilyn Ross's ''Barnabas Collins'' series (1966–71), loosely based on the contemporary American TV series ''Dark Shadows''. It also set the trend for seeing vampires as poetic tragic heroes rather than as the more traditional embodiment of evil. This formula was followed in novelist Anne Rice's highly popular ''Vampire Chronicles'' (1976–2003), and Stephenie Meyer's Twilight (novel series), Twilight series (2005–2008).Film and television
Considered one of the preeminent figures of the classic horror film, the vampire has proven to be a rich subject for the film, television, and gaming industries. Count Dracula in popular culture, Dracula is a major character in more films than any other but Sherlock Holmes, and many early films were either based on the novel ''Dracula'' or closely derived from it. These included the 1922 silent German Expressionist horror film ''Nosferatu'', directed by F. W. Murnau and featuring the first film portrayal of Dracula—although names and characters were intended to mimic ''Dracula''s. Universal's ''Dracula (1931 English-language film), Dracula'' (1931), starring Béla Lugosi as the Count and directed by Tod Browning, was the first sound film, talking film to portray Dracula. Both Lugosi's performance and the film overall were influential in the blossoming horror film genre, now able to use sound and special effects much more efficiently than in the Silent film era, Silent Film Era. The influence of this 1931 film lasted throughout the rest of the 20th century and up through the present day. Stephen King, Francis Ford Coppola, Hammer horror, Hammer Horror, and Philip Saville each have at one time or another derived inspiration from this film directly either through staging or even through directly quoting the film, particularly how Stoker's line "''Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make!''" is delivered by Lugosi; for example Coppola paid homage to this moment with Gary Oldman in his interpretation of the tale in 1992 and King has credited this film as an inspiration for his character Kurt Barlow repeatedly in interviews. It is for these reasons that the film was selected by the US Library of Congress to be in the National Film Registry in 2000. The legend of the vampire continued through the film industry when Dracula was reincarnated in the pertinent Hammer Film Productions, Hammer Horror series of films, starring Christopher Lee as the Count. The successful 1958 ''Dracula (1958 film), Dracula'' starring Lee was followed by seven sequels. Lee returned as Dracula in all but two of these and became well known in the role. By the 1970s, vampires in films had diversified with works such as ''Count Yorga, Vampire'' (1970), an African Count in 1972's ''Blacula'', the BBC's ''Count Dracula (1977 film), Count Dracula'' featuring French actor Louis Jourdan as Dracula and Frank Finlay as Abraham Van Helsing, and a Nosferatu-like vampire in 1979's ''Salem's Lot (1979 TV miniseries), Salem's Lot'', and a remake of ''Nosferatu'' itself, titled Nosferatu the Vampyre with Klaus Kinski the same year. Several films featured the characterization of a female, often lesbian, vampire such as Hammer Horror's ''The Vampire Lovers'' (1970), based on ''Carmilla'', though the plotlines still revolved around a central evil vampire character. The Gothic fiction, Gothic soap opera ''Dark Shadows'', on American television from 1966 to 1971, featured the vampire character Barnabas Collins, portrayed by Jonathan Frid, which proved partly responsible for making the series one of the most popular of its type, amassing a total of 1,225 episodes in its nearly five-year run. The pilot for the later 1972 television series ''Kolchak: The Night Stalker'' revolved around a reporter hunting a vampire on the Las Vegas Strip. Later films showed more diversity in plotline, with some focusing on the vampire-hunter, such as Blade (character), Blade in the Marvel Comics' Blade (film series), ''Blade'' films and the film ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer (film), Buffy the Vampire Slayer''. ''Buffy'', released in 1992, foreshadowed a vampiric presence on television, with its adaptation to a Buffy the Vampire Slayer, series of the same name and its spin-off ''Angel (1999 TV series), Angel''. Others showed the vampire as a protagonist, such as 1983's ''The Hunger (1983 film), The Hunger'', 1994's ''Interview with the Vampire (film), Interview with the Vampire'' and its indirect sequel ''Queen of the Damned'', and the 2007 series ''Moonlight (American TV series), Moonlight''. The 1992 film ''Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992 film), Bram Stoker's Dracula'' by Francis Ford Coppola became the then-highest grossing vampire film ever. This increase of interest in vampiric plotlines led to the vampire being depicted in films such as ''Underworld (2003 film), Underworld'' and ''Van Helsing (film), Van Helsing'', the Russian ''Night Watch (2004 film), Night Watch'' and a TV miniseries remake of ''Salem's Lot (2004 TV miniseries), Salem's Lot'', both from 2004. The series ''Blood Ties (TV series), Blood Ties'' premiered on Lifetime Television in 2007, featuring a character portrayed as Henry Fitzroy, an illegitimate-son-of-Henry VIII of England, Henry-VIII-of-England-turned-vampire, in modern-day Toronto, with a female former Toronto detective in the starring role. A 2008 series from HBO, entitled ''True Blood'', gives a Southern Gothic take on the vampire theme. In 2008 ''Being Human (UK TV series), Being Human'' premiered in Britain and featured a vampire that shared a flat with a werewolf and a ghost. The continuing popularity of the vampire theme has been ascribed to a combination of two factors: the representation of human sexual activity, sexuality and the perennial dread of mortality.Games
The role-playing game ''Vampire: The Masquerade'' has been influential upon modern vampire fiction and elements of its terminology, such as ''embrace'' and ''sire'', appear in contemporary fiction. Popular List of vampire video games, video games about vampires include ''Castlevania'', which is an extension of the original Bram Stoker novel ''Dracula'', and ''Legacy of Kain''. The role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons features vampires.Modern vampire subcultures
''Vampire lifestyle'' is a term for a contemporary subculture of people, largely within the Goth subculture, who consume the blood of others as a pastime; drawing from the rich recent history of popular culture related to cult symbolism, horror films, the fiction of Anne Rice, and the styles of Victorian England. Active vampirism within the vampire subculture includes both blood-related vampirism, commonly referred to as ''sanguine vampirism'', and ''psychic vampire, psychic vampirism'', or supposed feeding from prana, pranic energy.Notes
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* * * * {{Horror fiction Vampires, Shapeshifting