The living dead: A study of the vampire in Romantic literature - Hardcover

For a working definition of a classical vampire, one may refer to John Heinrich Zophius's 1733 dissertation called Dissertatio de Vampiris Serviensibus: "Vampires issue forth from their graves in the night, attack people sleeping quietly in their beds, suck out all their blood from their bodies, and they destroy them. They beset men, women, and children alike sparing neither age nor sex. Those who are under the fatal malignity of their influence complain of suffocation and a total deficiency of spirits, after which they soon expire. Some who, when at the point of death, have been asked if they can tell what is causing their decrease, reply that such and such persons, lately dead, have arisen from the tomb to torment and torture them." To these classical features of the vampire, James Twitchell author of The Living Dead adds seven more generally accepted characteristics: 1. Although many need human blood to survive, there is also a breed of psychological vampires who parasitically live off the experiences of others, and who only occasionally, if ever, take blood. 2. They bleed their victims dry but do not kill them. 3. Their canine teeth become pronounced before and after the bloodletting, with their "red lips drawn back." 4. They sleep with their eyes open. 5. They can go for weeks without food after a human repast. 6. They usually roam at night, as they can see in the dark. 7. And no vampire is particularly happy about being involved in this process