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Vampires, Burial, and Death by Paul Barber

11:16 am 30 April 2020
Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality - Paul Barber

TITLE:  Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality

 

AUTHOR:  Paul Barber

 

DATE PUBLISHED:  1988

 

FORMAT:  Hardcover

 

ISBN-13:  9780300041262

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DESCRIPTION:

 

"In this engrossing book, Paul Barber surveys centuries of folklore about vampires and offers the first scientific explanation for the origins of the vampire legends.  From the tale of a sixteenth-century shoemaker from Breslau whose ghost terrorized everyone in the city, to the testimony of a doctor who presided over the exhumation and dissection of a graveyard full of Serbian vampires, his book is fascinating reading."

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REVIEW:

 

An interesting and fascinating examination of the possible causes of various vampire legends and mythologies, focusing on what happens to a corpse during decomposition.  The occasional droll observations were entertaining.  The author also differentiates between vampire folklore/legends and literature, which are rather different.  A bit repetitive.

 

 

 

Anthropology history-of-things