In 1828, Elizabeth Caroline Grey published the first known vampire tale by a woman: a Gothic confection called The Skeleton Count, or The Vampire Mistress. Although largely forgotten now, Grey was a prolific, bestselling novelist beloved by women readers, and this brought the vampire legend to an even larger audience. In 1847, a serialized melodrama called Varney the Vampire by James Malcolm Rymer caused the next big vampire sensation. It’s pure soap opera, and about as well written, but Rymer’s story remains an important part of the vampire canon nonetheless — not only because it was hugely popular, but also because we now begin to see vampires portrayed in a more sympathetic light (as creatures tortured by the life they lead), a theme that has since been carried on by writers like Joss Whedon and Stephenie Meyer. Other major additions to the vampire canon at the end of the nineteenth century included Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla (1872), which scandalized readers with its overtones of lesbian eroticism, and a trio of books by the French author Paul Féval: Le Chevalier Ténèbre, La Vampire, and La Ville Vampire (1860–1874).

All these nineteenth-century tales were based on the vampire myths of eastern Europe, made familiar to readers by the vampire hysteria of the previous century. There was no attempt to stay faithful to this lore, however; each writer reshaped and embroidered the legends to suit his or her own purpose. The vampires of myth, for example, are described as hideously bloated in appearance, red of skin and unnaturally fat from feasting nightly on blood and flesh. The literary vampire, by contrast, is generally pale, thin, and aristocratic, with a dark erotic appeal that is largely absent from the old folktales. Many tropes now standard in vampire lore were actually invented in nineteenth-century fiction — such as the vampire’s protruding fangs, his fear of sunlight, his invisibility in mirrors, his association with vampire bats (which are native to South America, not Europe), and his ability to travel as long as he brings his coffin and some native soil with him.