History of the Vampire: Literary vampires before Dracula

Continuing our series exploring the vampire, the ever-popular figure and symbol against which we can define our own humanity. Today we will be looking at a sample of the literary vampire treatments before Dracula, and particularly the ways in which they expanded on the vampire as product of the Enlightenment to create a figure with drives and motivations, as cursed as much as it curses others. Many of the countries most captivated by the historic vampire cases would take up the figure and weave it in with emerging literary trends, to explore even more frontiers of thought. In coming weeks we will talk in depth about Dracula, before moving to more modern vampire panics and vampires on film.