Our Vampires, Ourselves  

"Vampires and American presidents began to converge in my imagination, not because all presidents are equally vampiric, but because both are personification of their age [...] Since I loved vampires before I hated Republicans, this book also reflects my idiosyncrasies.”--Our Vampires, Ourselves (1995) by Nina Auerbach, p. 3

"For at least fifty years after Planche's Vampire, the moon was the central ingredient of vampire iconography; vampire's solitary and repetitive lives consisted of incessant deaths and - when the moon shone down on them - quivering rebirths. Ruthven, Varney and Raby need marriage and blood to replenish their vitality but they turn for renewed life to the moon...a corpse quivering to life under the moon's rays is the central image of midcentury vampire literature; fangs, penetration, sucking and staking are all peripheral to its lunar obsession."--Our Vampires, Ourselves (1995) by Nina Auerbach