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Encyclopedia of Vampire Mythology
From the earliest days of oral history to the present, the vampire myth persists among mankind's deeply-rooted fears. This encyclopedia, with entries ranging from "Abchanchu" to "Zmeus," includes nearly 600 different species of historical and mythological vampires, fully described and detailed.
207 pages, Paperback
First published July 6, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 1, 2018
If you're looking for inspiration for a vampire novel, this might be as good a starting point as any. But once you go to Wikipedia or any other place and read more, you'll find out that Theresa Bane relied on fourth-hand sources. Critical research failure. If you're looking for reliable information, you'll need to double-check everything, because the author didn't.
Full review with examples on my blog: https://nouw.com/cwidmann/theresa-ban...
Full review with examples on my blog: https://nouw.com/cwidmann/theresa-ban...
April 15, 2024
A good beginner's guide to vampire mythology, but so many issues with it.
Firstly, was this not proofread? So many typos and mistakes in the text itself it's almost embarrassing. I can understand one typo, maybe even forgive two. But there were so many I stopped counting.
Secondly, for an encyclopedia it is very inconsistent. It's more of a dictionary than an encyclopedia, really. However the spelling guides are very inconsistent (why did you give me the spelling guide for a common English word like 'salt' but not for the Polish word Werzelya??). The way that the writing is executed is also very inconsistent - some entries span paragraphs and others are only one sentence long. This just feels like it was a very rushed project with very little actual work done.
Thirdly, I cannot condone the use of the word Gypsy when we all agreed years ago that this word is a slur. Please, use Romani. This book was published in 2010, when we knew even then that the word 'gypsy' was not OK to use.
Again, great if you're starting off as a vampire enthusiast. But not something I would keep in my home long term.
Firstly, was this not proofread? So many typos and mistakes in the text itself it's almost embarrassing. I can understand one typo, maybe even forgive two. But there were so many I stopped counting.
Secondly, for an encyclopedia it is very inconsistent. It's more of a dictionary than an encyclopedia, really. However the spelling guides are very inconsistent (why did you give me the spelling guide for a common English word like 'salt' but not for the Polish word Werzelya??). The way that the writing is executed is also very inconsistent - some entries span paragraphs and others are only one sentence long. This just feels like it was a very rushed project with very little actual work done.
Thirdly, I cannot condone the use of the word Gypsy when we all agreed years ago that this word is a slur. Please, use Romani. This book was published in 2010, when we knew even then that the word 'gypsy' was not OK to use.
Again, great if you're starting off as a vampire enthusiast. But not something I would keep in my home long term.
April 17, 2014
An excellent compilation. It wasn't exactly what I was looking for as I was trying to build research for some future writing, but it worked out well. It chronicles an incredible amount of mythology and lore surrounding a vast array of backgrounds.
February 22, 2013
This is fascinating.
did-not-finish
March 31, 2020dry, and reading her other works have problems with sources, I'm worried for its reliability. Giving up on this.
June 13, 2024
I was very excited with this book, but found unforgivable mistakes and couldn’t keep going. I am Brazilian and as many Brazilians, I know about the Brazilian lore and myths she wrote about since I was a kid. I also have studied about this myths at University. Unfortunately most of the things this book states about the alleged Brazilians vampires - Iara, Lobisomem, jaracas, is wrong, and the last two are even misspelled in the book. Only the chupa-chupa was described more correctly, but not completely too. It was a disappointment because now I don’t know what is reliable in this book.
July 7, 2022
Tremendous Reference material
The encyclopedia has folklore,history , and
Just interesting reference material.
Well documented and just fascination
With all the types of these creatures
The encyclopedia has folklore,history , and
Just interesting reference material.
Well documented and just fascination
With all the types of these creatures
April 3, 2023
I like that certain animals and other possible vampires are included in this book.
As with the other books in by this author, it is a good place to start when researching new beings.
A good addition to any fantasy writer’s shelf.
As with the other books in by this author, it is a good place to start when researching new beings.
A good addition to any fantasy writer’s shelf.
August 4, 2017
Finished reading this book a couple of days ago, and I'm most certainly going to have to read it again so I can grasp the full body of these myths!
But Theresa Bane is SO amazing with the way she works with these myths and what seems like Jungian psychological theories - she talks about vampires as an archetype of the certain kinds of diseased and dead. Can you tell how in-awe I am?!
But Theresa Bane is SO amazing with the way she works with these myths and what seems like Jungian psychological theories - she talks about vampires as an archetype of the certain kinds of diseased and dead. Can you tell how in-awe I am?!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews