II， NTRODUCTION
ur continuing interest in the nightblooming， bloodsucking ladies and gen-
tlemen of the night is obvious. No other creature in the world of horror has
caused more fear， more dread， yet more fascination than the vampire. The
single work of fiction most frequently brought to the movie screen is not one of the
great works of literature but the nineteenth-century gothic novel Dracula. The novel
has been made into a movie more than a dozen times and， encouraged by the tech-
nological improvement in special effects， Draeula has inspired more than 200 addi-
tional movies in which Count Dracuta is the central character. In fact， the count is
second only to Sherlock Holmes in frequency of appearance on the silver screen.
Since the publication of Dracula in a897， the book has remained continually in print
in numerous editions and versions， and it has inspired hundreds of novels and short
6tories. While it may seem that writers have exhausted the theme， the number of
new vampire novels has surprisingly continued to grow. As of 1992， an average of
two additional Dmcula or vampire novels appear every month.
~AMPIROLOGY: THIRSTING FOR THE ORIGIN OF THE VAMPIRE
Despite the humorous element and even the touch of the absurd in the contem-
.porary appearance of the vampire， it is the subject of serious consideration.
Vampirology， the name given the field of study of the vampire and the myth it has
spawned， has at least three significant components. The prime concern of vampirol-
ogy is the investigation of reports of encounters with a vampire--these reports date
tO ancient Greece and Rome and are just as numerous today--and the subsequent
development of theories concerning the nature of vampires. Such theories fall
ro Jghly into two categories: those that suppose the actual existence of vampires and
those that relegate it to the realm of superstition or various psychological causes. In
modern times， the search for real vampires has been promoted by the development
of the modem discipline of parapsychology.
A second aspect of vampirology， which arose in the early nineteenth century， is
the vampire as the subject of popular imaginative fiction writing. Beginning with
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