This is my First post looking in an in-depth way at Palgrave’s Handbook of the Vampire, a monumental reference work that has an introduction and 97 chapters concerning all aspects of vampire study. It is published as an e-book with the chapters available through institutional logins and being published as a two-volume hardcopy. I am lucky enough to have provided two chapters for the handbook (which I won’t be writing blog posts on but you can find links to the Handbook pages for each chapter I provided on the Handbook Page I have set up).
This first post concerns the Introduction, written by editor Simon Bacon. Of course, the chapter is an editorial, it outlines the scope of the project and what the reader can hope to find within. He suggests that “So much more research and study are required to understand and recognise the full implications of what we are saying when we say ‘VAMPIRE.’”. This is fitting coming from Simon – he and I indulge in frequent correspondence and have collaborated a few times, but his output into the arena of vampire study is vast (as both editor and author) but his definition of vampire is wide also and it is this width that allowed him to catch a vast net to snare the cornucopia of treasures within the Handbook.
I also have to give a moment of thanks for the fact that one of my entries for the Handbook was actually cited within the introduction.
As I continue to look at the Handbook, I will point out interesting ideas, new sources of vampire media and even where I disagree with a proposition within a chapter. This project, to map each chapter, over time, here at TMtV will undoubtedly take a long time. I will read the chapters over time and then have to write the article and schedule it for posting, of course, but it is a journey I think will be worth taking.
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