The subject of vampirism continues to fascinate and excite modern audiences and can be found in a range of film and TV titles such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Underworld. More recently Elizabeth Kostova's best-selling novel The Historian draws heavily on Bram Stoker's novel and Dracula appears as a character within her story. Many have argued that the character of Dracula has greatest resonance within our own times and the current iconic status that the world's most famous vampire has achieved suggests that they may be right.
In this Pocket Essential on Dracula, Giles Morgan examines the roots of the vampire myth and vampirism from ancient Babylonian, Persian and Greek mythologies to its current manifestation iconically established in Bram Stoker's gothic masterpiece from 1897. Morgan ranges across the literary antecedents of Stoker's Dracula and traces the impact it has had in contemporary film culture, from Nosferatu, through the Hammer horror films of the 50s and 60s to Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula and beyond.
