Reading the Vampire

<p>Insatiable bloodlust dangerous sexualities the horror of the undead uncharted Trannsylvanian wildernesses and a morbid fascination with the `other': the legend of the vampire continues to haunt popular imagination.<br><em>Reading the Vampire</em> examines the vampire in all its various manifestations and cultural meanings. Ken Gelder investigates vampire narratives in literature and in film from early vampire stories like Sheridan Le Fanu's `lesbian vampire' tale <em>Carmilla</em> and Bram Stoker's <em>Dracula</em> the most famous vampire narrative of all to contemporary American vampire blockbusters by Stephen King and others the vampire chronicles of Anne Rice `post-Ceausescu' vampire narratives and films such as FW Murnau's <em>Nosferatu</em> and Bram Stoker's <em>Dracula</em>.<br><em>Reading the Vampire</em> embeds vampires in their cultural contexts showing vampire narratives feeding off the anxieties and fascinations of their times: from the nineteenth century perils of tourism issues of colonialism and national identity and obsessions with sex and death to the `queer' identity of the vampire or current vampiric metaphors for dangerous exchanges of bodily fluids and AIDS.</p>