Vampire Book: Encyclopedia of the Undead
Review by Beverley Richardson, submitted on 1-Oct-1994

Its a good thing I do aerobics, because when I bought The Vampire Book: Encyclopedia of the Undead by J.Gordon Melton, I needed every muscle I had to carry it around the shopping centre. At over 850 pages, this trade paperback book is no lightweight.

It's no lightweight in the information department either. It has detailed information on everything from dearg-duls (Irish vampires), to various vampire societies, to Hamilton Deane, to Innovation comics, etc. Bunson's Vampire Encyclopedia would fit in a corner of Melton's book.

The book is set up like a regular encyclopedia with the topics arranged alphabetically. Many topics, for example "Vampires among the Southern Slavs" have several pages of information. The icing on the cake is the list of references at the end of each topic, which makes it easy to follow up on it in greater detail.

In some cases the information is right up to date - for example, P.N Elrod's fan club which was only formed in 1993 has an entry. On the other hand, the section titled "St. Germain" discusses only Yarbro's older books, stopping with Tempting Fate published in 1982. Also, the reference list at the end of this section was incomplete - it did not list any books dealing with the real St. Germain.

However, in the bit of browsing I have done so far, the book is probably the best single source of vampire information around.

I found it in the "New Age" or "Occult" section of a Coles Bookstore.

Happy hunting, fellow fiends - this one is worth tracking down!