The Vampire: His Kith and Kin (1928) is an academic study of vampires. Its author, Montague Summers, was at one time an Anglican priest, although his later religious affiliation and status is unknown. Summers takes his study of the occult very seriously, genuinely believing that vampires, werewolves, witches and the like exist and citing evidence from a wide variety of sources. Although he has some odd beliefs, his writing often feels rambly, and he has a frustrating tendency to quote large stretches of works in multiple foreign languages without translation, he does put forth many insightful ideas and connections about the history of vampire lore and fiction. Summers followed up The Vampire: His Kith and Kin with another study of vampires, The Vampire in Europe. I have edited this text based on the 1991 reprint by Dorset and the version available at the Internet Sacred Text Archive. The extraordinarily long chapters have been broken up into multiple pages for easier reading. The endnotes appear as hyperlinked footnotes at the bottom of each page. I have fixed several errors in the endnote references; these changes are noted. While the original work is in the public domain, my editorial changes are copyrighted. A new critical edition, with notes and translations, was published in 2011. |