YEATS & VAMPIRES The poet W. B. Yeats read about #vampires in Ennemoser's History of Magic 1852. Vampires feature in his poem 'Oil and Blood' 'Under heavy loads of trampled clay Lie bodies of the vampires full of blood; Their shrouds are bloody and their lips are wet' #31DaysOfHalloween

VAMPIRE HEARTS In historical accounts of vampirism the heart is often taken out & burned or reduced to ashes. This 1896 newspaper cutting about the hearts of the New England #Vampires was found in Stoker's working papers for #Dracula the year he visited NY #31daysofHalloween

THE VAMPIRE by Rudyard Kipling. A haunting & macabre poem in which a hapless young man is beguiled by a female #vampire who appears in a scarlet shroud. Striking bat motif and limited edition Boston, 1898 #31daysofhalloween

HISTORY OF VAMPIRES The Histoire des vampires et des spectres malfaisans (1820) was written by the French demonologist Jacques-Albin-Simon Collin de Plancy & based on prior 18th-century treatises, local European folklore, and historical #vampire panics #31daysofHalloween Image: second edition, 1820.

Sam George, Older than Dracula: in search of the English vampire theconversation.com/older-th… via @ConversationUK #31DaysofHalloween

VAMPIRE BOOKSHOP FIND Struggling to fit this on my shelves but it stands up quite well considering its 1999 publication. I'd buy it for the cover alone but it does include a vintage essay on the female #vampire by Carol Senf!

THE SOUL OF COUNTESS ADRIAN An occult novel of supernatural possession or psychic vampirism in which the soul of the dead Countess Agnes Adrian, a femme fatale, displaces the soul of a young American actress. Written by a female novelist and published in London in 1891

The use of the bat is epic here, a symbol of what would develop into the vampire's boundless love affair with the cinema. This most gothic of tropes was there from the beginning!