Vampire History and Lore

by Stuart A. Kallen

Explores vampire beliefs from the blood-sucking beasts of ancient times to the immortal teen heartthrobs of the twenty-first century.

Hardcover

First published July 1, 2010

About the author

Kallen has written more than 350 nonfiction books for children and young adults. His books have covered a wide arc of human history, culture, and science. Kallen is also an accomplished singer-songwriter and guitarist in San Diego, California

Reviews

[Andre · Rating 1 out of 5]

They say, don't judge a book by its cover and that is true here. The cover of the version I had showed Vlad Tepez III (aka Dracula) and you might think this book will give a detailed account about the topic of vampires and their origins and all. But the book fails.
Even a quick look at the pages will reveal that it's nothing more than another book attempted to cash in on the vampire craze by just throwing stuff from all over the place and giving it the label "vampire" as long as the creature itself is some sort of blood/life sucker even if it has nothing else in common with European vampires. The "red-everywhere" style of the pages reveal this book to be full of marketing tricks and without any substance.
There is no clear definition what a vampire actually is and I suspect that this is intentional since it allows to have creatures from all other the globe to be in the book and thereby, just like other books do with werewolves, try to make it look as though "the vampire" is an ancient and global phenomenon, when in fact it is purely European and of relatively recent origin (that is also one of the book's weaknesses: not knowing what the word "ancient" means).
People knowledgeable in the field will find nothing new here and maybe even be hurt by the book's inconsistencies.
People new to the field will basically be wasting their time as well and should try read an actually scholarly book that doesn't shy away to show the complexity of the belief system the vampire is based on.

[kaya ♱ · Rating 5 out of 5]

it fed my hyperfixation !! i don’t really have any problems with it.

[NaTaya Hastings · Rating 3 out of 5]

For what it was, this was actually a pretty decent book. It isn't terribly in-depth, but it gives an overview of vampire myths and their place in cultures and societies across the globe and throughout history. It describes both the lore and the science behind the phenomenon that caused the lore to come into effect initially.

Towards the end, it also dives into a little of today's pop culture vampires and how artists of all mediums have been making bank off vampires for years. I enjoyed reading it. It also has a fairly decent set of references cited at the back, and I intend to make good use of that as well.

Forgive me my typos please. Typing this up on my cell.

[Phoebebb · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was fun. It was interesting to see how many different ways vampires were portrayed throughout history. My favorite was how they disguised themselves as turkeys.