Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #244753 in Books
• Published on: 2001-08-28
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Customer Reviews

Excellent book BUT..
The real problem with this volume is not the research (which is astounding) or the use of old English (as one can soldier through) but the use of Latin and Greek, and even French and German for whole pages at a time. Maybe it's just me but I did not have a classical education and am totally unable to read either language and my French and German are rubbish - the fact that no English translation is then given just compounds the problem for me. Otherwise an excellent source of vampire lore.

Similar to Vampire His Kith and Kin
I actually bought the large A4 book which is extremely similar to this called Vampires in Europe. This book I also purchased and it happened to be the same (just easier to carry). As I have said about the other book this book is hard to read due to the mixture of old and new English, which is usual for books from the lates 1920's and early 30's. Again Montague Summers is very well informed about this subject due to his extensive research and travelling around Europe. This book concentrates more on the variation of myths between countries in Europe. Each chapter is devoted to a particular country (or group of countries). It is very informative and unlike the other book it tends to give you more of an idea about what the different myths on vampires are and how they vary between countries (the most interesting ones I thought were the ones in Greece).
Buy the book if your willing to read it over a few times to grasp the ideas and take hold of the language. If you read it for an hour or so you will start to understand the language and speak like it (ahhhh it happened to me!)