Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality [Paperback]

Paul Barber (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 25, 1988

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Barber has written a stimulating, authoritative discourse on the relationship between the historical concepts of vampires in folklore and fiction across the ages and throughout the world. To explain the underlying myraid interment and mourning practices designed to keep the dead at bay, he postulates a universal fear of the"vampire/revenant." Such fear was most probably based on universal lack of knowledge and control over fatal illness and disease, and misinterpretations of the natural (and varied) physical manifestations of death and decay in the human body. A lengthy bibliography accompanies the text. Best for academics, but for interested general readers too. Suzanne W. Wood, SUNY Coll. of Technology, Alfred, N.Y.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 244 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (July 25, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300048599
• ISBN-13: 978-0300048599
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #475,599 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Life after death, January 12, 2002

By 

"badric" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality (Paperback)

Forget everything you ever heard about Count Dracula and Lestat, we are dealing with the real thing here. You won't find any pale and sophisticated lounge lizards in this book, just foul smelling revenants lumbering about in uninhabited forests - and they are much more interesting than the Hollywood vampires we know so well.

This book deals with the origins of the vampire myth and is full of information on the scientific facts and superstitions that lead people to believe that the dead weren't really dead. Paul Barber quotes many contemporary sources and first hand experiences, including a fascinating report from a doctor who supervised the exhumation of about 20 suspected vampires in Serbia. Several scientific aspects of decomposition are described in painstaking detail and the author convincingly explains why peasants, who had no knowledge of forensic medicine, believed that these corpses weren't completely dead - and it makes perfect sense. Small wonder people thought that the dead were no really dead considering the astonishing changes they sometimes go through.

This is a very interesting book, well organised and easy to read, and not as gruesome as it could have been considering the subject matter. If you're interested in knowing how the vampire myth originated this is a great place to start.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A VERY funny, exhaustively informative, and scholarly work, November 9, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality (Paperback)

I stumbled over this book in our public library. What a find!

Mr. Barber has written what looks on the surface like a doctoral dissertation. The chapters are arranged as though to present and defend a thesis. But the content is so engagingly written (to the point of laugh-out-loud funny), it's difficult to put the book down, even when it exhaustively explains the details of bodily putrefaction. This is a must-have for anyone interested in REAL vampire folklore and superstition roots!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The odd behavior of the dead, June 14, 2001

By 

Eric Turowski (Oakland, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality (Paperback)

A lot of information in this book I'd heard from different sources over the years, but this one puts it all together. In one short volume, the entire vampire superstition is quickly and succinctly explained away. Evidently, the vampire myth is worldwide because of the way all human bodies behave after death. Simple as that. Details are given on a case-by-case basis as well as a plethora of rather gristly facts on decomposition, the problem of disposing of dead bodies, and the scientific (as well as superstitious) beliefs of cultures through time. There is nothing romanticized here, no black capes, no hypnotism, no pale aristocrats, no immortality. The imagination is nonetheless stimulated. One can only imagine the terror of a pre-scientific community suffering from a plague, digging up grandpa and discovering that he looks a lot more fat and healthy since he died last month. Something is horribly wrong... This is a great book, really well thought out and well presented. But if you're looking for "real" vampires, try the fiction section.