I think everyone has a classic Halloween creature they’re most drawn to: ghost, witch, werewolf, zombie. Mine? The vampire. Vampire lore dates back centuries, and they still remain one of the most famous classic monsters.
Films like Ryan Coogler’s Sinners and Robert Egger’s adaptation of Nosferatu, TV series like What We Do in the Shadows, and even stage musicals like The Lost Boys have been met with critical acclaim in recent years. Popular culture is having a “Vampire Renaissance.” It makes sense that audiences crave vampire stories like the creatures themselves crave blood — vampire stories have existed for hundreds of years.
Ancient tales of undead blood-drinkers are found in various cultures across the world, and they were especially widespread in Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages — where the word ‘vampire’ originates. It’s theorized that alleged vampires were likely suffering from a blood disorder called porphyria, which inflicts symptoms like light sensitivity, gum recession that can give teeth a fang-like appearance, and an aversion to garlic.
For centuries, vampires have existed in folklore, but it wasn’t until the 19th century that they became canonized in literature. Vampires as we know them in pop culture today are informed by a long and rich literary tradition. As an English major, vampire fiction is one of my favorite topics to nerd out about, so I couldn’t resist the urge to write an article about it for the Halloween season. These stories, in my opinion, have been the most influential in establishing ‘the vampire’ and defining what it represents to general audiences today:
The Vampyre by John Polidori
Dracula may be the most well-known vampire, but his story didn’t come first. Step aside, Bram Stoker!
Prior to the 19th century, vampires had popped up in prose a handful of times, but it wasn’t until John Polidori’s short story The Vampyre was published in 1819 that vampires made their true literary debut. The story was a result of one of Gothic literature’s most famous gatherings. During the summer of 1816, Lord Byron hosted Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley (then Godwin) and other friends (aka Byron’s mistress and Mary’s stepsister Claire Clairmont — I know, so tea) at his mansion in Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Poor weather — 1816 was infamously known as the “Year Without Summer” — forced the group to remain indoors; to pass time, Byron suggested they compete in a ghost story writing competition. As a result of this challenge, Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein and John Polidori, who attended as Byron’s physician, wrote The Vampyre.
The story follows the narrator as he becomes acquainted with an aristocrat, Lord Ruthven, who dies and rises from the dead as a vampire. It was originally misattributed to Byron, but, in actuality, Lord Ruthven is believed to be a caricature of him. This establishes the tradition of ‘the vampire’ resembling a Byronic hero: brooding, melancholic, seductive, and guilt-ridden from their dark past — I’m looking at you Edward Cullen.
I have a copy of The Vampyre sitting on my bookshelf, and I’m waiting for the perfect, crisp, nothing-to-do autumn day when I can go out onto my porch and enjoy it in one sitting.
Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan LeFanu and Dracula by Bram Stoker
The Vampyre sparked the first-ever vampire pop culture craze. This phenomenon resulted in various forms of vampiric media, one of the most popular being the Penny Dreadful series Varney the Vampire. The next major work of vampire fiction, however, didn’t come about until Joseph Sheridan LeFanu’s 1872 novella Carmilla.
The story follows a young woman named Laura as she befriends a mysterious woman who she, along with her father, take into their Styrian castle while she heals from a carriage accident. The woman, Carmilla, exhibits strange, languid behaviors and develops a deep attachment to Laura, and it’s revealed that she is a vampire preying on Laura and other local women.
Carmilla, like The Vampyre, presents an aristocratic vampire, beginning the tradition of vampires being wealthy, upper-class socialites. Unlike her predecessors, however, Carmilla is literature’s first woman vampire. The novel is considered the initial iteration of the lesbian vampire trope, as Carmilla exclusively pursues women and her relationship with Laura contains queer subtext. I’ve read Carmilla and, considering 19th-century attitudes towards women’s platonic and romantic same-sex relationships, I interpreted the story’s use of vampirism as a vilifying allegorical portrayal of sapphic identity.
Carmilla isn’t the last time vampirism is associated with queerness (we’ll get to that later). The next major work of vampire fiction it inspired was Bram Stoker’s Dracula, about 20 years later, in 1897.
The story is told as a series of letters recounting various experiences with the vampire Count Dracula. While previous literary vampires were of Western and Central European origins, Dracula was the first Eastern European vampire, coming from Transylvania.
It’s clear that Stoker took inspiration from his vampiric successors when writing Dracula. For example, it’s believed that the inspiration for Dracula’s castle comes from the setting in Carmilla. Stoker drew on pre-existing trends to create one of if not the most famous vampire character and story.
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
All vampire fiction entering the 20th century takes inspiration from Dracula. Richard Matheson introduced vampirism into the post-apocalyptic horror genre with his 1953 novel, I Am Legend, which zombifies vampirism, presenting it as an infectious disease that ravages the planet. Stephen King’s 1975 novel Salem’s Lot moves the vampiric story to small-town America.
All of these stories portray vampires as evil fiends, acting as the antagonists who terrorize the human protagonists. Anne Rice was the first to pose the idea that, rather than a purely evil monster, the vampire could be a morally gray, tortured soul. Her 1976 novel Interview with the Vampire gives the vampire a voice for the first time.
The story is exactly what the title suggests: the novel follows an interview between a young journalist and the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac as he retells his centuries-long life story beginning in 18th-century Louisiana. The novel was the first in the series of Anne Rice’s wildly successful vampire novels known as The Vampire Chronicles.
Anne Rice is credited with reviving the vampire genre by reinterpreting the conventions set up by her predecessors to tell a new story that centers the vampire as a fleshed-out protagonist — and a romantic figure, establishing the vampire romance subgenre. Her work set the stage for other vampire romances, such as Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series. Even Edward’s ‘vegetarianism’ takes inspiration from Anne Rice’s vampires, as Louis was the first to hold a moral objection to drinking human blood.
Anne Rice’s vampires also represent a reintroduction of queerness into the vampire story; in the past, she has famously discussed the bisexuality of her characters and writing perspective.
Confession: I haven’t read the original novel. I was introduced to Interview with the Vampire through the ongoing TV series adaptation of the same name first and (no offense to Anne) I can’t imagine the story any other way now. The 2022 show is championed for bringing the novel’s queerness to the forefront, no longer subtext but an explicit and pivotal part of the story. If anything I’ve written about in this article even remotely interests you, I highly recommend checking out the show — it has it all, and does it brilliantly. Plus, it’s a perfect watch for the Halloween season!
I’ve read the second book in Anne Rice’s series, The Vampire Lestat, where Louis’ maker and tumultuous love interest, Lestat de Lioncourt, tells his life story starting in 18th-century France. Her prose is so lush and intricate; I can see why she’s such an icon in modern Gothic fiction.
From folkloric tale to literary genre to pop culture archetype, the vampire has taken many forms. No matter what you picture when you think of a vampire — whether that be an eerie, rotting Gothic creature who lives in a ruinous castle to await victims or a seductively tortured and sparkling hunk who spends eternity going to high school (for some reason) — it’s drawn from a long literary history.