[i]

VAMPIRES AND VAMPIRISM

[ii]

VAMPIRES AND
VAMPIRISM

BY
DUDLEY WRIGHT

LONDON
WILLIAM RIDER AND SON, LIMITED
1914

[iii]

The awakened interest in supernormalphenomena which has taken place in recentyears has included in its wake the absorbingsubject of Vampirism. Yet there has notbeen any collection published of vampirestories which are common to all the fivecontinents of the globe. The subject ofvampirism is regarded more seriously to-daythan it was even a decade since, andan attempt has been made in this volumeto supply as far as possible all the instanceswhich could be collected from the variouscountries. How far a certain amount ofscientific truth may underlie even whatmay be regarded as the most extravagantstories must necessarily be, for the present,at any rate, an open question; but he wouldindeed be a bold man who would permit[v]his scepticism as to the objective existenceof vampires in the past or the possibilityof vampirism in the future to extend toa categorical denial. If this collection ofstories helps, even in a slight degree, to theelucidation of the problem, the book willnot have been written in vain.

DUDLEY WRIGHT.

Authors’ Club, 2 Whitehall Court, S.W.,
1st September, 1914.