This book of essays on Dracula, intended for inclusion on university reading lists, will also appeal to those with a serious interest in the rise of this popular icon. Carol Margaret Davison, a lecturer in gothic literature at Concordia University, and York University geography professor Paul Simpson-Housley have put together a notable collection of historical information and critical analysis.

Divided into several thematic sections, the book includes such topics as vampirism as the ultimate “sexually transmitted” degenerative disease and Dracula’s social impact on an AIDS-devastated “family values” marketplace; antiquity and modernity in a mytho-realistic landscape; the variance/clash between censorship and erotic discourse; and Dracula’s appearance in Japanese animation after the Second World War as an unnatural being within the natural order of things.
The popularity of contemporary vampire novels and movies attests to Dracula’s undiminished appeal 100 years after the publication of Stoker’s classic novel. It is more than his immor(t)ality that has spawned this sub-culture of images. He is still a sign of the times encoding our hopes, fears, desires, and anxieties. This book is essentially Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Dracula, But Were Afraid to Ask.