The Vampire in Europe (Kegan Paul Library of Arcana)

This book isn't designed to give real information about vampires, rather it is a source book for the reader to assume what he will from the material.

The actual writing isn't especially gripping. Eventually the stories become tedious, and one seems pretty much the same as the other. For a factual introduction to vampires, I'd recommend books by Sean Manchester instead.


A curious byway of the unknown   March 3, 2000
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

This book was written in the late twenties by a consummate researcher into occult matters . It is scholarly in style and references, written from the standpoint of someone who really believed that vampires existed and constituted a grave menace to mankind. Summers retails factual accounts from Roman times to the famous Croglin Hall case in C19th England, and more recently still in Transylvania. Indeed, so many and varied are the sources he uses, many quite respectable, that an impartial reader will pause for thought before dismissing Summers' admittedly fervidly held beliefs. The modern reader must be patient with the many Greek and Latin citations, but will be rewarded with a sounder grasp of the subject than most modern books afford. It has to be said also that the stories and accounts are very entertaining.