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Bane, Theresa. Encyclopedia of Vampire Mythology. Jefferson: McFarland, 2010. Hardcover. 199 pp. ISBN 978-0-7864-4452-6. $75.00.
Theresa Bane begins the preface of her Encyclopedia of Vampire Mythology by identifying herself as "a vampirologist - a mythologist who specializes in crosscultural vampire studies" (1), and true to that statement and the purpose of an encyclopedia as a source of general knowledge, she catalogues thoroughly the range of vampire myths across world cultures. From the first alphabetical entry on the Abchanchu of Bolivia to Lilith, an ancient and widespread evil, to the last entry on Zmeus of southeastern Europe, Bane provides evidence for her claim that "[tjhroughout history, every culture of man [sic] has had an incarnation of the vampire, a being responsible for causing plagues and death" (1).
In defining the vampire as a bringer of plague and death, Bane identifies the specific - and uncommon - focus for this useful book. She sets her definition over and against the commonly held conception that the vampire is merely a re-animated corpse of Christian Europe that rises from the grave to consume the blood of humans, as illustrated in Bram Stoker's Dracula and developed in other studies such as J. Gordon Melton's The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead and Montague Summers's The Vampire in Lore and Legend. Moreover, while The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters by Rosemary Ellen Gulley and Matthew Bunson's The Vampire Encyclopedia share Bane's view that the vampire is a worldwide phenomenon, unlike Bane, they include numerous fictional accounts of the vampire, something Bane explicitly rejects as inappropriate to her project.
By virtue of this exclusion, however, Bane creates a problem for herself. She writes in her preface that
a "fictional" vampire is, for the sake of classification, a vampire that is the creation of an author or group of creative-minded individuals. These fictional characters were deliberately not included. . . . Only time will tell what, if any, vampire characters from various forms of entertainment will one day be considered "historically relevant." I do not believe that the time has come to make that call. (3)
However, by choosing to include the specific myths here that she has, she has already made such a call that they are "historically relevant."...