Violet Fenn - A History of the Vampire in Popular Culture: Love at First Bite

This book is dedicated to Gladstones Library, Hawarden .

My happy place .

LOVE AT FIRST BITE

VIOLET FENN

First published in Great Britain in 2021 by

PEN AND SWORD HISTORY

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire Philadelphia

Copyright Violet Fenn, 2021

ISBN 978 1 52677 662 4

eISBN 978 1 52677 663 1

Mobi ISBN 978 1 52677 664 8

The right of Violet Fenn to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

Pen & Sword Books Limited incorporates the imprints of Atlas, Archaeology, Aviation, Discovery, Family History, Fiction, History, Maritime, Military, Military Classics, Politics, Select, Transport, True Crime, Air World, Frontline Publishing, Leo Cooper, Remember When, Seaforth Publishing, The Praetorian Press, Wharncliffe Local History, Wharncliffe Transport, Wharncliffe True Crime and White Owl.

For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact

PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED

47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England

E-mail:

Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

Or

PEN AND SWORD BOOKS

1950 Lawrence Rd, Havertown, PA 19083, USA

E-mail:

Website: www.penandswordbooks.com

So many people keep both myself and my work going on a daily basis that I dont even know where to start, but Ill do my best. Hugest love and thanks to:

Gill Hoffs (@gillhoffs), who is a brilliant history author, knows how to calm my crazy, and without whom this book simply wouldnt exist; Cressida Downing ( thebookanalyst.co.uk ) we must be into the second decade of wailing at each other about writing now? Or maybe it just feels that long; Alex Butler, for endless helpful input and also for kindly allowing me to use some of his own work in the chronology at the back of this book; Tom Bradburn (Friends of Anfield Cemetery) and Brendan Monks (Liverpool City Council), for being so welcoming and helpful in getting me into the less accessible parts of the beautiful Anfield Cemetery; everyone at Highgate Cemetery (that tenth album tho, eh?).

Guinevere Glasfurd ( guinevereglasfurd.com ), author of The Year Without Summer , for her expertise on the weather of 1816; Fran Hansen, for her fabulously vampiric Sims knowledge (and lifelong services to hair); Birgitta Zoutman, one of the loveliest people I know and the absolute queen of cackling at dirty jokes while snapping author portraits; Lucy Chamberlain, font of Discworld knowledge and my go-to fact-checker for the Rivers of London series.

Dacre Stoker for being so generous with his time and giving of his thoughts; Wayne Hussey, for tolerating my barely disguised fangirling and for generally being an utter babe; Johnny Brugh, the loveliest vampire Ive never met; Kirstin Lavender of Absinthe Promotions who has the best networking skills of anyone I know and kindly introduced me to Dacre, Wayne and Johnny, as well as taking time to answer questions herself.

Li Zakovics, for keeping me sane on a daily basis (its an ongoing challenge); my brother, Scott love you forever; Lee Meadows, who has gone above and (way) beyond for me on many an occasion and who mostly gets rewarded by me being rude to him in return; Jan Hancock; Dr Nadia Van Der Westhuizen, who appears to be constructed entirely of intellect and glamour; Winston Gomez, for Munsters expertise and lessons in Liverpools more esoteric history; Billy Martin; Lyra Whyte, for her ridiculous levels of Buffy knowledge; Helen Stringer, some of whose thoughts on untangling the psyche of John Mitchell I have used almost verbatim; Jacqueline Dooley Hamilton; Laura Norkett Lui; Steve Kenny; Karen Thomas; Zak Jane Kier, for services to dark erotica; Ruth Douglas; Sam Wolf Girl Cleasby; Susannah Tigerlili Cavill, my fellow blue-furred monster; Mum, Pete and Speedy Nan; the Hoors, who know who they are; Lads life would be far duller without you; Jim Parkin; Sessha Batto; Johnny Welburn; Jenny Angliss.

Nick Cave, for providing the soundtrack to my life. Im sorry for my brain falling out of my ears that time we met.

Hugest thanks to Karyn Burnham for her editorial efficiency (and extreme patience in the face of my terrifyingly adept procrastination skills), and also to everyone at Pen & Sword for being so supportive, particularly Claire Hopkins, Emily Robinson and Rosie Crofts.

Dad I so desperately wish you were here to see that I finally made use of my morbid interests.

And most of all, my boys. Jaime, Oscar you are the lights of my life and I wouldnt be where I am without you (but if you can stop sending miserable emo music to the family group chat, Id appreciate it).

If Ive missed anyone off, Im truly sorry lets meet up in the afterlife and fight it out there. Dont forget your cloak.

I cant remember now how or why, but in my early teens I developed a habit of watching reruns of old horror movies. All I knew was that films such as The Mummys Hand, The Bride of Frankenstein and, above all, Dracula , had an air of dark deliciousness that Id never seen before. I felt a kinship with the mythical monsters and Christopher Lee was, to me, the perfect boyfriend. Life in the world of the old horror movies was simple and clear cut literally black and white, dead or alive. I rapidly became obsessed with this twilight world of death, beauty and barely disguised sexuality. Video tape recorders had not long become available and I would fill tape after tape with overnight recordings, getting up early on a Sunday to watch beautiful women being threatened by caped intruders, before I was forced to rejoin the real world again to spend quality time with my family.

Luckily for me, this was the 1980s and the goth scene was in full flow a ready source of music, movies and the macabre. I spent my pocket money on cheap Constance Carroll eyeshadows from the local market, wore so much black eyeliner that I looked as though Id been punched in the face and listened endlessly to Phantasmagoria by The Damned, First And Last And Always by The Sisters of Mercy and Gods Own Medicine by The Mission. I sat in the living room of my familys semi-detached house in a particularly boring part of the West Midlands wearing black velvet and matching black lipstick and wondered what I had to do to get a particularly thirsty bat to visit through my suburban bedroom window in the dead of night.

Being human is never easy. No wonder, then, that so many of us see the vampires forever dark and different as our one true love.

Violet Fenn

Shrewsbury, February 2020

I was finishing the manuscript for this book when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. As I write this, most of the world is under lockdown and many of us are very, very scared. Hugest thanks to those who continued to help and support me while going through endless stresses and strains of their own I really hope were all still around to look back on it all in wonderment by the time this goes to print. Eternal, immortal love to you all .