Slayers and Their Vampires by Bruce McClelland

The first book to explore the origins of the vampire slayer

"A fascinating comparison of the original vampire myths to their later literary transformations."
-Adam Morton, author of On Evil

"From the Balkan Mountains to Beverly Hills, Bruce has mapped the vampire's migration. There's no better guide for the trek."
-Jan L. Perkowski, Professor, Slavic Department, University of Virginia, and author of Vampires of the Slavs and The Darkling: A Treatise on Slavic Vampirism

"The vampire slayer is our protector, our hero, our Buffy. But how much do we really know about him-or her? Very little, it turns out, and Bruce McClelland shows us why: because the vampire slayer is an unsettling figure, almost as disturbing as the evil she is set to destroy. Prepare to be frightened . . . and enlightened."
-Corey Robin, author of Fear: The History of a Political Idea

"What is unique about this book is that it is the first of its kind to focus on the vampire hunter, rather than the vampire. As such, it makes a significant contribution to the field. This book will appeal to scholars and researchers of folklore, as well as anyone interested in the literature and popular culture of the vampire."
-Elizabeth Miller, author of Dracula and A Dracula Handbook

"Shades of Van Helsing! Vampirologist extraordinaire Bruce McClelland has managed that rarest of feats: developing a radically new and thoroughly enlightening perspective on a topic of eternal fascination. Ranging from the icons of popular culture to previously overlooked details of Balkan and Slavic history and folk practice, he has rethought the borders of life and death, good and evil, saint and sinner, vampires and their slayers. Excellent scholarship, and a story that never flags."
-Bruce Lincoln, Caroline E. Haskell Professor of History of Religions, University of Chicago, and author of Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship,Authority: Construction and Corrosion, and Death, War, and Sacrifice: Studies in Ideology and Practice

Bruce A. McClelland is a writer, translator, and vampirologist in Charlottesville, Virginia. He received his Ph.D. in Slavic Studies at the University of Virginia. His work on vampires has appeared in Slayage: The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies. He has published four books of poetry, a book of translations of the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam, and his translations of Russian poetry have appeared in journals, books, and anthologies.

"Shades of Van Helsing! Vampirologist extraordinaire Bruce McClelland has managed that rarest of feats: developing a radically new and thoroughly enlightening perspective on a topic of eternal fascination. Ranging from the icons of popular culture to previously overlooked details of Balkan and Slavic history and folk practice, he has rethought the borders of life and death, good and evil, saint and sinner, vampires and their slayers. Excellent scholarship, and a story that never flags."
---Bruce Lincoln, Caroline E. Haskell Professor of History of Religions, University of Chicago, and author of Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship, Authority: Construction and Corrosion, and Death, War, and Sacrifice: Studies in Ideology and Practice

"McClelland's brilliant insight in Slayers and Their Vampires is how much the living need the living-dead. From the folkloric tradition down to the Buffy, the vampire slayer is twinned forever with the revenants she would slay, as though they, and we, can never escape our evil twin who lives in the shadows of death. The story of vampires is the story of the human soul struggling with its darkest desire, to become death in place of dying, as though one could master death by mimicking it."
---C. Fred Alford, Professor of Government and Distinguished Scholar-Teacher, University of Maryland, College Park, and author of What Evil Means to Us

"The vampire slayer is our protector, our hero, our Buffy. But how much do we really know about him---or her? Very little, it turns out, and Bruce McClelland shows us why: because the vampire slayer is an unsettling figure, almost as disturbing as the evil she is set to destroy. Prepare to be frightened...and enlightened."
---Corey Robin, author of Fear: The History of a Political Idea