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exactly a piece of prime literature compared to the other vampire stories listed herein.

In 1872, Joseph Sheridan le Fanu penned the infamous novella, "Carmilla", the story of a somewhat sapphic vampire who preyed on a young girl, Laura. Le Fanu suggests "Christabel" as the inspiration for this lovely piece of gothic, lesbian fiction.

Finally, we come to Bram Stoker's "Dracula" in 1897, hardly the first vampire story in English at this point, is it? And yet, when we think of the first vampire story ever, we think "Stoker." "Dracula," based on the folklore of the real Romanian hero, Vlad Tepesh (of "Vlad the Impaler") is just the first vampire story to allude to vampirism as an illness, disease, or curse. Where previously, vampires were similar to embodied poltergeists, or demons, Stoker re-envisions them to be the product of an illness - something that can be spread... hence, the famous "vampire bite."

Barring Dracula fan-fiction, the next prominent vampire novel to hit the English speaking world is "I Am Legend", by Richard Matheson in 1954. A somewhat sensationalized tale about a future, post-apocalyptic America where the world is riddled with zombie-cannibals who drink your blood. This story reminds me very much of a Charleton Heston movie I once watched....hmmm...what was that called again? Of course, I know that film came out in the 1970's, but, having also come out in the 70's, I saw the movie long before I read the book.

One of my personal favorites, only because I grew up in the same home-town as the writer and know the place off which he based this story, would be Stephen King's "Salem's Lot", in 1975. Word on the street is this story is based off the building of a religious cult in the middle of King's hometown of Durham, Maine. That religious cult building still stands with a gruesome, horrific history regarding its founder that everyone in a fifty mile radius is curious about. Come to Maine; see it for yourself. It's a church now, so be careful. The people there don't take kindly to the curious...maybe that's why King allegedly used it as inspiration for his first vampire fiction. Yay!

A year later, Anne Rice is the first to humanize the vampire experience at the start of her Vampire Chronicles in 1976, when "Interview with a Vampire" is first published. It is Anne Rice and Stoker, perhaps, who are the mother and father of the vampire image we hold in our collective conciousness today: the image of a person inflicted by passion and cursed by a damnation

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