From Bloated to Sparkling: Vampires in Fiction

The modern portrayal of vampires in fiction differs from the original mythical beings of ancient folklore. Last week saw the release of the Sense, Sensibility & Shifters paranormal romance anthology. My story features vampires, and to help me write what have become two of my favourite characters, I did a bit of research into how vampires have been portrayed in fiction over the centuries.

There is just so much information out there; I can’t do it justice. I hope I can give you a taste of how vampires have morphed from the bloated, mischievous undead of oral folklore to the pale, brooding (and sometimes sparkly) vampires we are more familiar with in modern fiction.

What is a vampire?

Vampires have appeared in the folklore and myths of countries and cultures across the world for millennia. In basic terms, vampires are beings who survive by feeding on the life essence of living creatures. This essence is usually blood but can also be spiritual essence.

The vampire myth is rooted in humanity’s fear of death and the unknown. Many recorded episodes of swells in vampire superstition occurred at the time of pandemics, such as the plague. Without a scientific understanding of disease and how it spread, imaginations ran wild.

Over the centuries, vampires have embodied society’s worst fears by crossing the boundaries of life and death, and breaking societal and cultural norms.

The modern English word ‘vampire’ stems from the Slavic word ‘vampyri’.

Vampire evolution

The earliest vampires in human mythology were female. Grounded in fears of an inversion of the life-giving ideals of the gender, the original vampires were portrayed as seductresses who sucked the life out of babies, therefore accounting for high infant mortality rates.

Vampires are even mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and attacked the vulnerable and the sick. Biblical figures like Cain and Judas (those famous villains) are also associated with vampires.

Modern-day notions of vampires are grounded in the folklore of Eastern Europe. From the Middle Ages, Slavic myths described vampires as bloated in appearance with reddish skin as a result of gorging on blood. They walked around in nothing but their death shrouds and visited their family members after rising from the grave (often to have sex with their former spouses) and caused mischief. Would Bella Swan have been dying to join the Cullens if she had had to assume this form? 😉

The Gothic craze

It’s the Gothic craze of the 18^th century that created the modern fictional vampire. Actual events in Eastern Europe led to a fascination with all things mysterious and horrid.

In the 1720s, there was an outbreak of alleged vampire attacks in Eastern Europe. Exacerbated by local superstition, stories spread of individuals rising from the grave and visiting their families. Mass hysteria developed, leading to the creation of bands of vampire hunters, who desecrated graves and staked corpses.

This continued into the 1730s until Hapsburg ruler and Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa of Austria sent her personal physician to investigate and concluded that vampires did not exist. The Empress passed laws prohibiting the opening of graves and the staking of bodies.

However, the vampire continued to live on in fiction.

Vampires and Romanticism

In the 19^th century, romanticism and imagination were at odds with the age of reason. The Romantics were drawn to the characteristics of the vampire, a creature that defied societal norms like them.

Vampires appeared in the work of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord George Gordon Byron. No longer red and bloated, vampires became pale, beautiful and mysterious, but still villainous.

The stormy night in Italy in the summer of 1816 is famous for the challenge that led to the creation of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. But it also created what is argued to be the first depiction of the modern fictional vampire. In 1819, Byron’s physician, John Polidori, wrote The Vampyre, a short story about a mysterious aristocrat called Lord Ruthven, who is believed to have been inspired by Lord Byron.

“That man of loneliness and mystery,

Scarce seen to smile, and seldom heard to sigh.”

Lord Byron, The Corsair, I, VIII

Over the following century, works of fiction cemented these ideals in the fictional, but still bad, vampire. In 1872, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu wrote Carmilla, about a beautiful and mysterious female vampire who seduced innocent maidens. This vampire was a threat to heterosexual marriage and the Victorian feminine ideal. Yeah, well, moving on.

In 1897, Dracula by Bram Stoker was published. Inspired by stories of Vlad the Impaler, Count Dracula embodies Victorian social anxieties. Stoker did his research on Slavic vampire folklore. Count Dracula, while not attractive, seduces his victims, is pale and thin, has red eyes, pointed teeth and is a shapeshifter.

From horror to romance

Until the 20^th century, vampires remained firmly in the horror genre. In 1966, the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows featured the vampire Barnabas Collins. He endeared himself to fans because of his romantic and tragic past, which led him to attempt, and often fail, to seduce women. In 1976, Anne Rice introduced the world to the first ‘good guy vampire’, Louis de Pointe du Lac, in Interview with the Vampire. Vampires had now become tragic, romantic figures marked by loneliness.

The 1990s saw the vampire enter the action genre. Tabletop games like Vampire: The Masquerade set vampires in the modern world wrestling with morality and politics and established modern vampire tropes like the rivalry with werewolves, and vampire society and hierarchies. There are also vampire hunting organisations (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and vampire-human hybrids like Blade (in comics from 1973 and film from 1998) made the perfect vampire hunters.

From the early 2000s, good vampires suddenly became the perfect romantic heroes. The Vampire Diaries and Twilight were both originally written for a young adult audience, where teenage heroines become involved in fantastical worlds of mystery and magic, and fall in love with mysterious and beautiful vampires. Thankfully, the sparkling doesn’t seem to have stuck as a modern vampire trope. Yeah, I mention the sparkling a lot. I just found it weird.

Just my opinion, but The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris (AKA the TV series True Blood) mixes folklore and modern fictional vampires much better. Staking and beheading is back, plus you get what I would class as a more realistic, morally grey modern vampire, jaded by their experiences of immortal life.

Vampires and humanity

Modern fictional vampires have taken the edge off the original vampires of folklore generated by fear of disease and death. More recent adaptations are also more diverse and tackle gritty themes like morality and sex. The development of the fictional vampire reflects the development of society, what it means to be human, and still embraces our questions about life, death and whatever lies beyond.

Vampires are: “without hope in this world or the next.”

Aylmer Vance, 1914

You can read my take on vampires in In the Service of Heaven, part of the Sense, Sensibility & Shifters anthology.

Sources

Writing the Female Vampire, a talk by Dr Diane Duffy hosted by Elizabeth Gaskell’s House (2024)

Vampires: A Handbook of History and Lord of the Undead, Ange Hollyhock (2024)

Gothic Horrors: The Regency Vampyre

Pulse and Prejudice: How Did I Get Here?