Blood-Sucking Reads

Trace the literary history of vampires in popular fiction.

1819

THE VAMPYRE: A TALE by John Polidori

Perhaps inspired by his pale and irresistible patient Byron (who was originally mis-named as the book’s author), physician Polidori penned this novel about the decidedly Byronic Lord Ruthven as part of a story writing contest at the Shelleys’ summer digs on Lake Geneva.

1847

WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Emily Bronte

The story-spinning housekeeper suspects Heathcliff of being a vampire, and his predatory nature and inexplicable charisma do match up to the suave, languid vampire Polidori created.

1872

CARMILLA by Sheridan LeFanu

A young woman falls prey to an irresistible vampire in a crumbling castle in this novella—only this particular vampire happens to be a young woman.

1897

DRACULA by Bram Stoker

He wasn’t the first vampire, but his story establishes big pieces of vampire mythology, including garlic, stakes, and the vampire hunter Van Helsing. It’s also worth noting that Dracula is no longer a laconic Englishman but a creepy Transylvanian outsider.

1953

I AM LEGEND by Richard Matheson

Matheson imagines vampirism as a type of blood disease that — ultimately — makes real humans the monstrous, violent minority in this book, which manages to be a vampire novel and a zombie apocalypse prototype.

1975

INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE by Anne Rice

The Vampire gets complicated when he tells his own story — he’s not just a fiendish bloodsucker but a tortured hero, conflicted about his addiction to blood.

1979

BUNNICULA by Deborah Howe and James Howe

Vampires are funny and kid-friendly in this story about a vegetarian vampire who regularly sucks dry the contents of the produce bin.

2005

FLEDGLING by Octavia Butler

Butler uses the world of vampires to explore racism through the story of one young vampire who happens to be the only one of her kind with dark skin.

THE HISTORIAN by Elizabeth Kostova

Vampires get literary in this genre- bending novel that’s both an ode to the addictive pleasures of research and academia, a richly detailed historical fiction tale, and a classic Gothic novel.

(We’re Amazon affiliates, so if you purchase something through an Amazon link, we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Obviously this doesn’t influence what we recommend, and we link to places other than Amazon.) This list was originally published in the summer 2018 issue of HSL.

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