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INTRODUCTION

WHY VAMPYRES? WHY NOW?

When John Polidori wrote “The Vampyre” in 1819, he created a lasting genre by remanifesting an old myth. Although centuries of good Christian thinking had done their best to bury the notion we know. We know. We know that the Past wanted to fuck us and suck the life out of us. And although it’s scary, we like the notion. As modern humans as we rush about in our daytime world we know that although we are too numbed and scattered to really deeply desire anything, we know that there must have been figures in the past who could have so desired. Odysseus was more clever, Hercules more strong, Solomon wiser. These are acceptable myths. But what of someone or something that craves Life much more strongly than we can? Are they not as likely heroes as well?

Or can deer make heroes of wolves?

Polidori took a few elements of folklore, his own interest in Mesmerism and his unrequited love for Lord Byron and hit the chord. What happens when our unconscious mixes the fear of death, the pang of the loss of loved ones and the desire for the unobtainable? It is a powerful and corrosive alchemy—sort of a Jungian Shadow with an Everclear chaser.

The Vampyre rears its lovely head in times of stress. When the objective universe has become overburdened with political, economic and environmental strife, the Vampyre is there. The unspoken longing, “If I could only, just once loose control!” summons them from their crypts and some of our inkbottles.

This small booklet has certain magical properties. If you keep under your pillow after you have read it, you dream of Vampyres. And they will dream of you.

—Don Webb