Vampire literature

For information on vampires in movies and television, see Vampire films. For a list of fictional vampires, see List of fictional vampires. For a list of fictional dhampirs, see List of fictional dhampirs.

Artwork based on Sheridan le Fanu's Carmilla, an early influential work of vampire literature.

Vampire literature covers the spectrum of literary work concerned principally with the subject of vampires. The literary vampire first appeared in 18th century poetry, before becoming one of the stock figures of gothic fiction with the publication of Polidori's The Vampyre (1819), which was inspired by the life and legend of Lord Byron. Later influential works include the penny dreadful Varney the Vampire (1847); Sheridan Le Fanu's tale of a lesbian vampire, Carmilla (1872) and the masterpiece of the genre: Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897).

In later years, vampire stories have diversified into areas of crime, fantasy, science fiction or even chick-lit. While fanged revenants are the norm, newer representations include aliens and even plants with vampiric abilities. Others feed on energy, rather than blood.

History

Eighteenth century

Vampire fiction is rooted in the 'vampire craze' of the 1720s and 1730s, which culminated in the somewhat bizarre official exhumations of suspected vampires Peter Plogojowitz and Arnold Paole in Serbia under the Habsburg Monarchy. One of the first works of art to touch upon the subject is the short German poem The Vampire (1748) by Heinrich August Ossenfelder, where the theme already has strong erotic overtones: a man whose love is rejected by a respectable and pious maiden threatens to pay her a nightly visit, drink her blood by giving her the seductive kiss of the vampire and thus prove to her that his teaching is better than her mother's Christianity. Furthermore, there have been a number of tales about a dead person returning from the grave to visit his/her beloved or spouse and bring them death in one way or another, the narrative poem Lenore (1773) by Gottfried August Bürger being a notable 18th century example. One of its lines, Denn die Todten reiten schnell ("For the dead ride fast"), was to be quoted in Bram Stoker's classic Dracula. A later German poem exploring the same subject with a prominent vampiric element was The Bride of Corinth (1797) by Goethe, a story about a young woman who returns from the grave to seek her betrothed:

From my grave to wander I am forced

Still to seek the God's long sever'd link,
Still to love the bridegroom I have lost,

And the lifeblood of his heart to drink.

The story is turned into an expression of the conflict between Heathendom and Christianity: the family of the dead girl are Christians, while the young man and his relatives are still pagans. It turns out that it was the girl's Christian mother who broke off her engagement and forced her to become a nun, eventually driving her to death. The motive behind the girl's return as a "spectre" is that "e'en Earth can never cool down love". Goethe had been inspired by the story of Philinnion by Phlegon of Tralles, a tale from classical Greece. However, in that tale, the youth is not the girl's betrothed, no religious conflict is present, no actual sucking of blood occurs, and the girl's return from the dead is said to be sanctioned by the gods of the Underworld. She relapses into death upon being exposed, and the issue is settled by burning her body outside of the city walls and making an apotropaic sacrifice to the deities involved.

The first mention of vampires in English literature appears in Robert Southey's monumental oriental epic poem Thalaba the Destroyer (1797), where the main character Thalaba's deceased beloved Oneiza turns into a vampire, although that occurrence is actually marginal to the story. It has been argued that Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem Christabel (written between 1797 and 1801, but not published until 1816) has influenced the development of vampire fiction: the heroine Christabel is seduced by a female supernatural being called Geraldine who tricks her way into her residence and eventually tries to marry her after having assumed the appearance of an old beloved of hers. The story bears a remarkable resemblance to the overtly vampiric story of Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1872).

Nineteenth century

In a passage in his epic poem The Giaour (1813), Lord Byron alludes to the traditional folkloric conception of the vampire as a being damned to suck the blood and destroy the life of its nearest relations:

But first, on earth as vampire sent,
Thy corpse shall from its tomb be rent:
Then ghastly haunt thy native place,
And suck the blood of all thy race;

There from thy daughter, sister, wife,
At midnight drain the stream of life;
Yet loathe the banquet which perforce
Must feed thy livid living corpse:
Thy victims ere they yet expire
Shall know the demon for their sire,
As cursing thee, thou cursing them,
Thy flowers are withered on the stem.

Byron also composed an enigmatic fragmentary story concerning the mysterious fate of an aristocrat named Augustus Darvell whilst journeying in the Orient — as his contribution to the famous ghost story competition at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva in the summer of 1816, between him, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley and John William Polidori (who was Byron's personal physician). This story provided the basis for The Vampyre (1819) by Polidori. Byron's own wild life became the model for Polidori's undead protagonist Lord Ruthven. According to A. Asbjorn Jon 'the choice of name [for Polidori's Lord Ruthven] is presumably linked to Lady Caroline Lamb's earlier novel Glenarvon, where it was used for a rather ill disguised Byronesque character'

An unauthorized sequel to Polidori's tale by Cyprien Bérard called Lord Ruthwen ou les Vampires (1820) was attributed to Charles Nodier. Nodier himself adapted "The Vampyre" into the first vampire stage melodrama, Le Vampire. Unlike Polidori's original story Nodier's play was set in Scotland. This in turn was adapted by the English melodramatist James Planché as The Vampire; or, the Bride of the Isles (1820) at the Lyceum (then called the English Opera House), also set in Scotland. Planché introduced the "vampire trap" as a way for the title fiend to appear in a dream at the beginning and then to vanish into the earth at his destruction. Nodier's play was also the basis of an opera called Der Vampyr by the German composer Heinrich Marschner who set the story in a more plausible Wallachia. Planché in turn translated the libretto of this opera into English in 1827 where it was performed at the Lyceum also. Alexandre Dumas, père later redramatized the story in a play also entitled Le Vampire (1851). Another theatrical vampire of this period was 'Sir Alan Raby' who is the lead character of The Vampire (1852), a play by Dion Boucicault. Boucicault himself played the lead role to great effect, though the play itself had mixed reviews. Queen Victoria, who saw the play, described it in her diary as "very trashy".

A milestone in vampire literature was Elizabeth Caroline Grey's The Skeleton Count, or The Vampire Mistress (1828), believed to be the first vampire story published by a woman. An important later example of 19th century Vampire fiction is the penny dreadful epic Varney the Vampire (1847) featuring Sir Francis Varney as the Vampire. In this story we have the first example of the standard trope in which the vampire comes through the window at night and attacks a maiden as she lies sleeping.

Heathcliff in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1847), is suspected of being a vampire by his housekeeper at one point, which she immediately laughs off as "absurd nonsense."

Fascinating erotic fixations are evident in Sheridan le Fanu's classic novella Carmilla (1872) which features a female vampire with lesbian inclinations who seduces the heroine Laura whilst draining her of her vital fluids. Le Fanu's story is set in the Duchy of Styria. Such central European locations became a standard feature of vampire fiction.

Another important example of the development of vampire fiction can be found in three seminal novels by Paul Féval: Le Chevalier Ténèbre (1860), La Vampire (1865) and La Ville Vampire (1874). Marie Nizet's Le Capitaine Vampire (1879) features a Russian officer, Boris Liatoukine, who is a vampire.

In German literature one of the most popular novels was Hans Wachenhusens Der Vampyr - Novelle aus Bulgarien (1878), which, on account of the authors first-hand experience of Ottoman society, includes a detailed description of the multicultural society of Bulgaria, and which contains an atmosphere that is "in some parts comparable to Dracula".

The most famous Serbian vampire was Sava Savanović, famous from a folklore-inspired novel by Milovan Glišić.

Dracula

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) has been the definitive description of the vampire in popular fiction for the last century. Its portrayal of vampirism as a disease (contagious demonic possession), with its undertones of sex, blood, and death, struck a chord in a Victorian Britain where tuberculosis and syphilis were common.

The character of Count Dracula is based upon Vlad Dracula III (Vlad the Impaler). Ţepeş was a notorious 15th century Wallachian (Romanian) warlord, or "Voivode", also known as Vlad Ţepeş'. Unlike the historical personage, however, Stoker located his Count Dracula in a castle near the Borgo Pass in Transylvania, and ascribed to that area the supernatural aura it retains to this day in the popular imagination.

Stoker likely drew inspiration from Irish myths of blood-sucking creatures. He was also influenced by Le Fanu's Carmilla. Le Fanu was Stoker's editor when Stoker was a theatre critic in Dublin, Ireland. Like Le Fanu, Stoker created compelling female vampire characters such as Lucy Westenra and the Brides of Dracula.

Stoker's vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing was a strong influence on subsequent vampire literature.

Twentieth century

Though Stoker's Count Dracula remained an iconic figure, especially in the new medium of cinema, as in the film Nosferatu, 20th century vampire fiction went beyond traditional Gothic horror and explored new genres such as science fiction. An early example of this is Gustave Le Rouge's Le prisonnier de la planète Mars (1908) and its sequel La guerre des vampires (1909), in which a native race of bat-winged, blood-drinking humanoids is found on Mars. In the 1920 novella La Jeune Vampire (The Young Vampire), by J.-H. Rosny aîné, vampirism is explained as a form of possession by souls originating in another universe known simply as The Beyond.

Possibly the most influential example of modern vampire science fiction is Richard Matheson's I Am Legend (1954). The novel is set in a future Los Angeles overrun with undead cannibalistic/bloodsucking beings. The protagonist is the sole survivor of a pandemic of a bacterium that causes vampirism. He must fight to survive attacks from the hordes of nocturnal creatures, discover the secrets of their biology, and develop effective countermeasures. The novel was adapted into three movies: The Last Man on Earth starring Vincent Price in 1964, The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston in 1971, and I am Legend (film) starring Will Smith in 2007.

The latter part of the 20th century saw the rise of multi-volume vampire epics. The first of these was Gothic romance writer Marilyn Ross's Barnabas Collins series (1966–71) loosely based on the contemporary American TV series Dark Shadows. It also set the trend for seeing vampires as poetic tragic heroes rather than as the traditional embodiment of evil. This formula was followed in the popular Vampire Chronicles (1976–2003) series of novels by Anne Rice and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's massive Saint-Germain series (1978–). Ross, Rice and Yarbro set the trend for multi-volume vampire sagas which are now a stock feature of mass-market fiction (see below for list). Rice's work also saw the beginning of the convergence of traditional Gothic ideas with the modern Gothic subculture and a more explicit exploration of the transgressive sexualities which had always been implicit in vampire fiction.

The 1981 novel The Hunger (adapted as a film in 1983) continued the theme of open sexuality and examined the biology of vampires, suggesting that their special abilities were the result of physical properties of their blood. The novel suggested that not all vampires were undead humans, but some were a separate species that had evolved alongside humans. This interpretation of vampires has since then been used in several science-fiction stories dealing with vampires, most famously the Blade movie series.

Kim Newman's Anno Dracula series (1992–) returns to Stoker's Count Dracula and gives the genre a somewhat post-modern spin. The television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, created and largely written by Joss Whedon, also explored vampire folklore in the light of postmodern and feminist theory.

Post-Colonial perspectives on the vampire legend are provided in Nalo Hopkinson's novel Brown Girl In The Ring (1998), which features the Soucouyant, a vampire of Caribbean folklore, and in Tananarive Due's My Soul to Keep (1995) and its sequel The Living Blood (2001).

One of the more traditional vampire works of the twentieth century is Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot (1975), which reimagines the archetypal Dracula-type story in a modern American small town setting. King acknowledged the influence of Dracula on the work, as well as the violent, pre-Comics Code vampires portrayed in horror comics such as those released by E.C. Comics.

Twenty-first century

Many books based on vampires are still being published, including several continuing series. Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles ended after many years, but many others have started up in the meantime. Paranormal romance, inspired by Rice but mostly dropping the open sexuality of her characters in favour of more conventional sexual roles, is a remarkable contemporary publishing phenomenon. Romances with handsome vampires as the male lead include Lynsay Sands' Argeneau family series (2003–), Charlaine Harris The Southern Vampire Mysteries series (2001–2013), and Christine Feehan's Carpathian series (1999–). However, Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series has again shifted the genre boundaries from romance back toward the territory of erotica.

The occult detective sub-genre is represented by Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files fantasy series (2000–), and Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire Mysteries (2001–).

In the field of juvenile and young adult literature, Darren Shan wrote a twelve-book series (The Saga of Darren Shan) about a boy who becomes a vampire's assistant, beginning with Cirque Du Freak (2000) and ending with Sons of Destiny (2006). A film adaptation has been made of the first three books called Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009). He is also currently writing a prequel to The Saga, a series of four books all about Larten Crepsley (one of the main characters) starting with Birth of a Killer (2010) and finishing with Brothers to the Death (2012). Ellen Schreiber created a young-adult series about Raven Madison and her vampire boyfriend Alexander Sterling, starting with Vampire Kisses (2005). In Scott Westerfeld's young-adult novel Peeps (2005), the protagonist carries a contagious parasite that causes vampire-like behavior.

The king of vampires Count Dracula also continues to inspire novelists, for example Elizabeth Kostova in The Historian (2005).

Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist's critically praised vampire story Låt Den Rätte Komma In (2004) about the relationship of a 12-year-old boy with a 200-year-old vampire child has now been translated into English as Let the Right One In (2007) and a film adaptation has been produced. The story takes place in Blackeberg, a suburb of Stockholm. This particular novel does not follow the modern romantic trend, and instead focuses on a human-vampire friendship. Crucially, it retains many of the vampire traits popularized by Dracula.

Peter Watts' novel Blindsight has also explored a scientific basis for vampires, depicting them as an evolutionary offshoot from humanity who were not the dominant species on the planet solely due to an evolutionary glitch making them averse to Euclidean geometry.

In recent years, vampire fiction has been one of many supernatural fiction genres used in the creation of mashups. These works combine either a pre-existing text or a historic figure with elements of genre fiction. One of the best-known of these works is Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith, in which the historic Abraham Lincoln has a fictional secret identity as a hunter of evil vampires.

Traits of vampires in fiction

The traits of the literary vampire have evolved from the often repulsive figures of folklore. Fictional vampires can be romantic figures, often described as elegant and sexy (compare demons such as succubus and incubus). This is in stark contrast to the vampire of Eastern European folklore, which was a horrifying animated corpse. However as in folklore, the literary vampire is sustained by drinking blood. They do not need other food, water, or even oxygen. They are sometimes portrayed as being unable to eat human food at all, forcing them to either avoid public dining or mime chewing and eating to deceive their mortal victims. The fictional vampire, however, often has a pale appearance rather than the dark or ruddy skin of folkloric vampires and their skin is cool to the touch. As in folklore literary vampires can usually be warded off with garlic and symbols of Christian faith such as holy water, the crucifix, or a rosary.

According to literary scholar Nina Auerbach in Our Vampires Ourselves, the influence of the moon was seen as dominant in the earliest examples of vampire literature:

For at least fifty years after Planche's Vampire, the moon was the central ingredient of vampire iconography; vampire's solitary and repetitive lives consisted of incessant deaths and - when the moon shone down on them - quivering rebirths. Ruthven, Varney and Raby need marriage and blood to replenish their vitality but they turn for renewed life to the moon...a corpse quivering to life under the moon's rays is the central image of midcentury vampire literature; fangs, penetration, sucking and staking are all peripheral to its lunar obsession.

Bram Stoker's Dracula was hugely influential in its depiction of vampire traits, some of which are described by the novel's vampire expert Abraham Van Helsing. Dracula has the ability to change his shape at will, his featured forms in the novel being that of a wolf, bat, dust and fog. He can also crawl up and down the vertical external walls of his castle, in the manner of a lizard. One very famous trait Stoker added is the inability to be seen in mirrors, which is not found in traditional Eastern European folklore. Dracula also had protruding teeth, though was preceded in this by Varney the Vampire and Carmilla.

In the novel, the vampire hunter Van Helsing prescribes that a vampire be destroyed by a wooden stake (preferably made of white oak) through the heart, decapitation, drowning, or incineration. The vampire's head must be removed from its body, the mouth stuffed with garlic and holy water or relics, the body drawn and quartered, then burned and spread into the four winds, with the head buried on hallowed ground. The destruction of the vampire Lucy follows the three-part process enjoined by Van Helsing (staking, decapitation, and garlic in the mouth). Traditional vampire folklore, followed by Stoker in Dracula does not usually hold that sunlight is fatal to vampires, though they are nocturnal. It is also notable in the novel that Dracula can walk about in the daylight, in bright sunshine, though apparently in discomfort and without the ability to use most of his powers, like turning into mist or a bat. He is still strong and fast enough to struggle with and escape from most of his male pursuers, in a scene in the book. It is only with the 1922 film Nosferatu that daylight is depicted as deadly to vampires. Such scenes in vampire films, most especially the closing scene of the 1958 Dracula film in which Count Dracula is burnt by the sun was very influential on later vampire fiction. For instance Anne Rice's vampire Lestat and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Count Saint Germain both avoid the lethal effects of daylight by staying closeted indoors during the day.

A well-known set of special powers and weaknesses is commonly associated with vampires in contemporary fiction. There is a tendency, however, for authors to pick and choose the ones they like, or find more realistic, and have their characters ridicule the rest as absurd. For example, in the movie Blade, the vampire hunter Blade tells Karen Jenson what kills vampires (stakes, silver, and sunlight), and dismisses tactics seen in vampire movies (namely crosses and running water) as ineffective in killing vampires. Some vampires can fly. This power may be supernatural levitation, or it may be connected to the vampire's shape-shifting ability. Some traditions hold that a vampire cannot enter a house unless he or she is invited in. Generally, a vampire needs be invited in only once and can then come and go at will. Stephen King's novel Salem's Lot explored an unusual direction with this myth in having one of the protagonists revoke a vampire's invitation to a house; the vampire was forced to flee the building immediately.

Some tales maintain that vampires must return to a coffin or to their "native soil" before sunrise to take their rest safely. Others place native soil in their coffins, especially if they have relocated. Still other vampire stories such as Le Fanu's Carmilla maintain that vampires must return to their coffins, but sleep in several inches of blood as opposed to soil. Vampires are generally held to be unable to bear children, though the concept of a "half vampire" and similar creatures does exist in folklore and in some modern fiction. Some fictional vampires are fascinated with counting, an idea derived from folk stories about vampires being compelled to stop and count any spilled grain they find in their path. The most famous fictional counting vampire is likely Muppet character Count von Count on television's Sesame Street. Other examples include a fifth season episode of the X-Files titled Bad Blood, and the Discworld novel, Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett. Some modern fictional vampires are portrayed as having magical powers beyond those originally assigned by myth, typically also possessing the powers of a witch or seer. Such examples include Drusilla from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Drusilla was a seer before she was a vampire, and carried those powers into her undeath), Olivia Nightshade from The Nightshade Chronicles

Vampire hybrids

Main article: Dhampir

Main article: List of fictional dhampirs

The Dhampir, the offspring of a vampire and a human known from Serbian folklore, has been popularized in recent fiction.

Literature

• Der Vampir (The Vampire) by Heinrich August Ossenfelder (1748).
• Lenore by Gottfried August Bürger (1773).
• Die Braut von Korinth (The Bride of Corinth) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1797).
• Thalaba the Destroyer by Robert Southey (1801).
• The Vampyre by John Stagg (1810).
• The Giaour by Lord Byron (1813).
• Christabel by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1816).
• "The Vampyre" by John William Polidori (1819).
• "Lord Ruthwen ou les vampires" by Cyprien Bérard (1820) (often atrributed to Charles Nodier who as a matter of a fact only made the theater play of it).
• "La Morte Amoureuse" by Théophile Gautier (1836).
• "The Family of the Vourdalak" by Count Alexis Tolstoy (1843).
• Varney the Vampire or The Feast of Blood by James Malcolm Rymer (or Thomas Peckett Prest) (1847).
• "The Mysterious Stranger" by Anonymous. Translated from the original German, this vampire tale appeared in the English magazine Odds and Ends in (1860).
• Le Chevalier Ténèbre (Knightshade) by Paul Féval (1860).
• La Vampire (The Vampire Countess) by Paul Féval (1865).
• Carmilla (1872) by Sheridan le Fanu.
• La Ville Vampire (Vampire City) by Paul Féval (1874).
• "After Ninety Years" by Milovan Glišić (1880).
• "The Fate of Madame Cabanel" by Eliza Lynn Linton (1880).
• Manor by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1884).
• The True Story of the Vampire by Count Stanislaus Eric Stenbock (1894).
• Lilith by George MacDonald (1895).
• Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897).
• "The Tomb of Sarah" by F. G. Loring (1900).
• The House of the Vampire by George Sylvester Viereck (1907).
• The Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker (1911).
• "For the Blood is the Life" (1911) by F. Marion Crawford.
• "Wampir" ("The Vampire") (1911) by Władysław Reymont.
• "The Room in the Tower" (1912) by E.F. Benson.
• "Bewitched" (1927) by Edith Wharton.
• "The Dark Castle" (1931) by Marion Brandon.
• "Revelations in Black" (1933) by Carl Jacobi.
• "Lady Christina" (1936) by Mircea Eliade.
• "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes" (1949) by Fritz Leiber.
• I Am Legend by Richard Matheson (1954).
• "The Longest Night" by Ray Russell (1960).
• "Pages from a Young Girl's Journal" (1973) by Robert Aickman.
• 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King (1975).
• "The Night Flyer" by Stephen King.
• "The Hunger" by Whitley Strieber (1981)
• The Keep by F. Paul Wilson (1981).
• They Thirst by Robert McCammon (1981).
• Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin (1982).
• The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford (1983).
• The Light at the End by John Skipp and Craig Spector (1986)
• Those Who hunt the Night (UK title: Immortal Blood) by Barbara Hambly (1988).
• The Stress of Her Regard by Tim Powers (1989).
• Vampire$ by John Steakley (1990).
• The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause (1991).
• Vampire of the Mists by Christie Golden (1991)
• Knight of the Black Rose by James Lowder (1991)
• Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite (1992).
• The books I, Strahd, Memories of the Vampire (1993) and I, Strahd, the War with Azalin by P.N. Elrod tells the tale of the vampire lord Strahd von Zarovich who occupies the castle Ravenloft.
• Travelling with the Dead by Barbara Hambly (1995). A sequel to Immortal Blood.
• Dracula the Undead by Freda Warrington (1997). Commissioned by Penguin books as a sequel to Bram Stoker's Dracula for the centenary of the latter's first publication.
• Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett (1998).
• Sunshine by Robin McKinley (2003).
• Let the Right One In (Låt Den Rätte Komma In in the original Swedish) by John Ajvide Lindqvist (2004). Translated into English 2007.
• The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (2005).
• Fledgling by Octavia Butler (2005).
• Renfield: Slave of Dracula by Barbara Hambly (2006).
• "Morrigan's Cross", "Dance of the Gods" and "Valley of Silence" (The Circle Trilogy) by Nora Roberts (2006).
• Empire V (the original Russian title Ампир В is an acronym of the word "vampire") by Victor Pelevin (2006)
• Fangland by John Marks (2007).
• Blood Oath by Christopher Farnsworth (2010).
• Modern Marvels - Viktoriana by Wayne Reinagel (2011)
• "Blood Slave" by Robin Roseau (2014).
• "Fox Lost" by Robin Roseau, the seventh in the Fox series includes vampires (2014).

Fiction series

There are several recent series in vampire fiction, of variable literary quality. They tend to either take the form of direct sequels (or prequels) to the first book published or detail the ongoing adventures of particular characters.

• Lara Adrian's Midnight Breed series (2007–).
• Elaine Bergstrom's Austra Vampires series (1989–).
• Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files series (2000–). It should be noted that not all of these novels concern themselves largely with vampires, but a war between vampires and wizards figures heavily in the story.
• P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast's House of Night series
• Kresley Cole's The Immortals After Dark series (2006-)
• Nancy A. Collins's Sonja Blue series (1989–).
• MaryJanice Davidson's Undead series (2004–).
• Guillermo del Toro with Chuck Hogan The Strain (La trilogía de la oscuridad) (2009 - ).
• P. N. Elrod's Vampire Files series (1990–).
• Christine Feehan's Dark series (1999–).
• Jeaniene Frost's Night Huntress series (2007–).
• Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series series (2005–2008)
• Christopher Golden's Saints and Shadows Saga (1994–2003).
• Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series (1993–).
• Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire Mysteries (2001–).
• Kim Harrison's Hollows series (2004–).
• Tanya Huff's Blood Books series (1991–1997).
• Charlie Huston's Joe Pitt casefiles series (2005–).
• Jasper Kent's Danilov Quintet (2009–).
• Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark-Hunter (2002–).
• E. E. Knight's Vampire Earth series (2003–).
• Brian Lumley's Necroscope series (1986–).
• Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy and soon to be coming Bloodlines (Richelle Mead novel) series
• Christopher Moore's A Love Story series (1995–2007).
• Kim Newman's Anno Dracula series (1992–).
• Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles series (1976–2003).
• Marilyn Ross's Barnabas Collins series (1966–1971).
• Fred Saberhagen's Vlad Tepes series (1975–2002).
• Darren Shan's The Saga of Darren Shan series (2000–2006).
• Maggie Shayne's Wings in the Night series (1993–).
• L.J. Smith's The Vampire Diaries
• Jeanne C. Stein's Anna Strong series
• Whitley Strieber's Hunger series (1981–2002).
• JR Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series (2005–).
• Freda Warrington's Bloodwine series (1992–).
• David Wellington's Thirteen Bullets, 99 Coffins, Vampire Zero, 23 Hours (Laura Caxton, James Arkeley series)
• Gene Wolfe's Urth: Book of the Short Sun trilogy (1999–2001).
• Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Saint-Germain series (1978–).
• Dianne Sylvan's Shadow World series.
• Chloe Neill's Chicagoland Vampires series.

White Wolf, a maker of role playing games, releases novels set in the fantasy world of its Vampire: The Masquerade' game. These series of novels were released in 13-book sets, each corresponding to one of the 13 clans of vampires in their game universe.

Juvenile fiction

• The Little Vampire series, by Angela Sommer-Bodenburg (1979).
• The Bunnicula series by Deborah Howe and James Howe (1979).
• School for vampires series, by Jackie Niebisch (1985).
• The Darkangel series by Meredith Ann Pierce (1982–1990).
• The Vampire Diaries series by L. J. Smith (author) (1991–).
• Night World series by L.J. Smith (1996-)
• The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause (1992).
• The Last Vampire series by Christopher Pike (1994–).
• Companions of the Night (1995) by Vivian Vande Velde.
• Amelia Atwater-Rhodes's novels In the Forests of the Night (1999), Demon in My View (2000), Shattered Mirror (2001), Midnight Predator (2002), Persistence of Memory (2008).
• Saga of Darren Shan also known as the Cirque Du Freak series (2000–4) series by Darren Shan.
• Sweetblood by Pete Hautman (2003).
• Ellen Schreiber's Vampire Kisses series (2005–).
• Peeps by Scott Westerfeld (2005).
• Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer (2005–2008)
• The Last Days by Scott Westerfeld (2006).
• The Blue Bloods series by Melissa de la Cruz (2006 -).
• Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy series (2006–2010).
• Tantalize by Cynthia Leitich Smith (2007).
• The House of Night series by P. C. Cast & Kristin Cast (2007–).
• The Reformed Vampire Support Group by Catherine Jinks (2009).
• Little Dracula series by Martin Waddell & Joseph Wright (1986–2001).

Comic books

Comic books and graphic novels which feature vampires include Vampirella (Warren Publishing, 1969), Morbius, the Living Vampire (Marvel, 1971), Tomb of Dracula (Marvel Comics, 1972), Blade (Marvel, 1973), I...Vampire (DC Comics, 1981), Hellsing (Shonen Gahosha, 1997), 30 Days of Night (IDW Publishing, 2002), Chibi Vampire (Monthly Dragon Age, 2003), Rosario + Vampire (Monthly Shōnen Jump 2004), Vampire Knight (LaLa, 2005), Blood Alone (MediaWorks, 2005), Dracula vs. King Arthur (Silent Devil Productions, 2005), Dance in the Vampire Bund (Media Factory, 2006), Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter: Guilty Pleasures (Dabel Brothers Productions/Marvel Comics, 2007), Half Dead (Dabel Brothers Productions/Marvel Comics, 2007), Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight (Dark Horse Comics, 2007), Nosferatu (Viper Comics, 2010), and Twilight: The Graphic Novel (2010).

Proinsias Cassidy, the supporting lead male in Garth Ennis's comic book series Preacher (DC/Vertigo, 1995), is a vampire of Irish origin. In addition, many major superheroes have faced vampire supervillains at some point. In the Belgo-French comic Le Bal du rat mort, police inspector Jean Lamorgue is a hybrid vampire and he is a king of rats. He is guiding an invasion of rats in Ostend and he sucks the blood of his human victims.

In 2009, Zuda Comics launched La Morté Sisters. A story of teenage vampirism in a Catholic orphanage taking place in South Philadelphia. The story follows new girl Maddie in a world of ninja nuns and black magic.

Magazines

Magazines which feature vampires include Bite me magazine (launched 1999). Typical features include interviews with vampire actors, features on famous vampire film classics, vampire-related news, forthcoming vampire film and book releases.

Defunct vampire magazines include Crimson (England); Journal of the Dark (USA), Father Sebastiaan's Vampyre Magazine (USA) and The Velvet Vampyre (available to members of the disbanded The Vampyre Society, England).

Bibliography

• Christopher Frayling (1992) Vampyres: Lord Byron to Count Dracula (1992) ISBN 0-571-16792-6
• Freeland, Cynthia A. (2000) The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror. Westview Press.
• Holte, James Craig. (1997) Dracula in the Dark: The Dracula Film Adaptations. Greenwood Press.
• Melton, J. Gordon. (1999) The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead. Visible Ink Press.
• Montague Summers (1928) The Vampire: His Kith and Kin, (book reprinted with alternate title: Vampires and Vampirism ISBN 0-486-43996-8). Chapter 5 - "The Vampire in Literature" is reprinted in Clive Bloom (2007) Gothic Horror: 108-126. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• M. J. Trow (2003) Vlad the Impaler. Sutton: Stroud.