Origins of the Literary Vampire

While there have been many illuminating studies of pre-literary vampires and vampires that have already been firmly established as literary figures, the story of the crucial moment of transition from folkloric figure to literary subject has not yet been told. The Origins of the Literary Vampire redirects scholarly attention to the body of German poetry and prose where vampire folklore becomes vampire literature. This book focuses on the adaptation of the vampire superstition from central European folklore by German poets in the eighteenthand early nineteenth centuries for an audience that had become increasingly interested in superstition and occult phenomena in an Age of Enlightenment.