The most comprehensive source of vampire knowledge on the market! This is easily the quickest recommendation I can make to any vampire lover and horror fan to expand their collection. This giant encyclopedia closes in on 1000 pages of dictionary-style entries that cover everything you ever needed to know and wanted to know about vampires or vampire adjacent things! I have cruised this book countless times cover to cover, and it shows its age and love well judging by the cover that's peeling and the binding that is cracking. It has held up for over 15 years and is still in fairly acceptable condition. It was made to take a beating and survive a long life, just like its title creature. It explores everything from nonfictional history to fictional entries of vampiric beasts throughout the timeline. Movies, characters, and other famous works are constantly referenced and studied in this book, so you get a fair balance of it all. You have visuals throughout the encyclopedia as well, so it isn't just walls of text on text. The book even comes with an entertaining flipart of a bat flapping its wings in the corners of the pages when you flip through :) I like to have strong opinions on what I read, so this book is far from being boringly exhaustive. This book does not deserve anything less than 5 stars. ( )

Fabulous reference book--great for authors and people interested in the mythology behind vampires. ( )

This is a fascinating look at all things vampire. Whether you're interested in the folk stories behind vampire, the most popular (pre-Twilight) vampire books/movies/television shows this is a great resource to have. ( )

Found in Beijing at Bookworm library (http://www.beijingbookworm.com/) and read drinkin' a lot of american (bad)coffee ^_^ ( )

Amazingly complete reference. Includes entries that go beyond vampires to general folklore. Recommended to those whose interest in vampires might be more minimal, since the breadth of the text goes beyond the undead. ( )