I remember discovering monster movies, bag in the days when 50 cents got you into the Saturday show with a bag of popcorn as well. After watching all the ghoulishness on the screen I would search the used book stores for scary stories, and anything that said mummy or vampire in the title. Back in those days books like "Vampires & Vampirism" were making their last rounds - worn volumes on the dusty shelves in the back of the store.
Written first in 1914, and reprinted in 1924, "Vampires & Vampirism" is a classic example of its type. The author, a folklorist and specialist in ancient religions and occult beliefs has compiled out of obscure references and records a huge number of legends about vampire behavior. The book is a confection of such stories, compiled and retold, with the author providing the bare bones framework needed to organize the material and ensure an orderly progression from one to another.
Dudley Wright organizes his reports primarily by country or region. One gets to read of the ancient vampires of Babylonia and Greece, then the scene shifts to Britain, Germany, Hungary, the Balkans, Russia, and the Oriental realms. He even comes up with some modern material in the U.S. Wright is less well organized from a historical viewpoint, but his material covers a period from several millennia B.C. to 1923. Additional chapters discuss the power of excommunication (which is apparently how Vlad the Impaler became Dracula the vampire), living vampires, literary references and a somewhat tedious discussion of whether (or how) vampires existed.
While not a great academic study, the book is more like a compost heap of imaginings waiting for the delectation of the curious, or to feed the fertile imaginations of both readers and authors alike. In digesting it one must keep in mind that, up to the period in which this book was written, vampire literature was still quite scarce. Whether Dudley Wright and his kind are responsible for the resurgence of the vampire tale as an entire genre I cannot say, but it is a tempting to draw that conclusion. "Vampires & Vampirism" is full of interesting little facts and twists and is easy, pleasant reading. For the vampirophile this is one of those volumes without which one's library would be incomplete. In other words, great fun.