Nick Groom, known as the “Prof of Goth,” is professor of literature in English at the University of Macao.
"An authoritative take on the history of the vampire."—New York
Times Book Review
"Nick Groom concludes this invigorating study of vampires by
suggesting that we should try to be a bit more like them.
Thankfully this doesn’t entail hanging shiftily around blood donor
banks . . . Rather, Groom wants us to think about vampires as a way
of re-enchanting the contemporary human condition."—Kathryn Hughes,
Guardian (Book of the Day)
‘Colossally smart. . . Groom is interested in undead Byron,
but he is more interested in the aspects of vampirology that pop
culture tends to neglect. . . It is a great relief to meet Groom’s
vampire, still icy from the void and unburdened by the aesthetic of
Gothic nightingale-lite. When it materializes, on the threshold of
a worrisome dream, it looks nothing like what one expected. .
."—Katy Waldman, New Yorker
"Groom impressively manages to analyze vampires’ influence on
almost every facet of private and public life—social, theological
political, medical, cultural, sexual, literary—over the span of
four centuries."—Regina Munch, Commonweal
“Formidably well-researched study” — Kevin Jackson, Literary
Review
“With the unflappable pace of a phantom coachman, Groom takes us to
year zero - an outbreak of vampire panics stemming from the Serbian
communities of the Austrian Empire's newly acquired Balkan
marches.” —All About History
“Printed with a number of vibrant and shocking illustrations and
plates, this is a fascinating work of both cultural history and
literary criticism.” —Seán Hewitt, Irish Times
“The historical sections of this study are wonderfully nuanced,
carefully argued takes on the vampire as a specific monstrous
manifestation…Groom’s contention that the vampire cannot and should
not be conflated with other monsters and his evidence against an
inaccurate history of it as an ancient folkloric superstition are
groundbreaking and refreshing.”—Elizabeth Bridgham, Wilkie Collins
Journal
“In this erudite and engaging history of the vampire Nick Groom
explores the blood sucker’s journey through the European
Enlightenment and beyond, illuminating broader aspects of religion,
medicine and culture on the way. In doing so, Groom provides us
with a valuable prehistory of the literary Dracula.”—Owen Davies,
author of Grimoires
“Groom succeeds in contextualising the vampire thoroughly, for the
first time, in the changing cultures of two hundred years of
European history: a remarkable achievement.”—Ronald Hutton, author
of The Witch
“Likely to be the definitive history of the vampire for years to
come. In an accessible yet deeply scholarly dive into the archives
of medicine, folk-lore, travel writing, theology, politics and
literature, Groom produces a compelling account of the vampire as
the product of the Enlightenment’s clash with its superstitious
Eastern other from the seventeenth century onwards. A blood feast
that will sustain every kind of vampirologist, from teen Goth up to
Professor Van Helsing.”—Roger Luckhurst, author of Zombies
"Our centuries-long fascination with the living dead is given a
fresh and welcome consideration by Nick Groom, who mines historical
reality—and unreality—with a keen appreciation of cultural meaning
and metaphor."—David J. Skal, author of Something in the
Blood
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