Vampires in the New World

Book excerpt: This book provides an engaging historical survey of the vampire in American popular culture over 100 years, ranging from Bram Stoker's classic novel Dracula to HBO's television series True Blood. Vampires in the New World surveys vampire films and literature from both national and historical perspectives since the publication of Bram Stoker's Dracula, providing an overview of the changing figure of the vampire in America. It focuses on such essential popular culture topics as pulp fiction, classic horror films, film noir, science fiction, horror fiction, blaxploitation, and the recent Twilight and True Blood series in order to demonstrate how cultural, scientific, and ideological trends are reflected and refracted through the figure of the vampire. The book will fascinate anyone with an interest in vampires as they are found in literature, film, television, and popular culture, as well as readers who appreciate horror and supernatural fiction, crime fiction, science fiction, and the gothic. It will also appeal to those who are interested in the interplay between society and film, television, and popular culture, and to readers who want to understand why the figure of the vampire has remained compelling to us across different eras and generations.