"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 doesnt 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 Grooms 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 lifesocial, theological political, medical, cultural, sexual, literaryover 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 manifestationGrooms 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 suckers 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 Enlightenments 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 realityand unrealitywith a keen appreciation of cultural meaning and metaphor."David J. Skal, author of Something in the Blood
