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The Vampire's Bedside Companion
This unique volume contains a collection of evidence and folklore, of fact and fiction to chill the heart and make the blood run cold.
- GenresVampires
188 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1975
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46 people want to read
About the author
Peter Underwood
89 books16 followers(1923/2014): Author, broadcaster, historian of the occult; investigator of the paranormal.
Born in Letchworth in Hertfordshire, Underwood wrote prolifically on ghosts and haunted places within the United Kingdom, and was a leading expert on ‘the most haunted house in England’, Borley Rectory.
An early formative experience came at the age of nine, on the day he learnt of his father’s death; that night, he awoke to see an apparition of his father at the foot of the bed.
Around the same time, he was fascinated to learn of a ghost story associated the old house at Rosehall - where his maternal grandparents lived for a time; it contained a bedroom where guests claimed to see the figure of a headless man..
It was at this young age that Underwood's interest in hauntings and psychic matters began to take root.
On January 1942, Underwood was called up for active service with the Suffolk Regiment. After collapsing at a rifle range at Bury St Edmunds, a serious chest ailment was diagnosed. He was discharged, and returned to his employment at the publishing firm J.M. Dent & Sons.
One of his early investigations was the Borley Rectory haunting, where, over a period of years, Underwood traced and personally interviewed almost every living person who had been connected with the mysterious events surrounding the place.
Underwood built upon the legacy of the work of Harry Price, who had investigated Borley before him. Together with Paul Tabori (literary executor of the Price Estate), Underwood was able to publish all his findings in The Ghosts of Borley (1973).
In his autobiography No Common Task (1983), Underwood remarked that ”98% of reported hauntings have a natural and mundane explanation, but it is the other 2% that have interested me for more than forty years”.
Having joined The Ghost Club back in 1947 - at the personal invitation of Harry Price, Underwood was to become its President for over thirty years: from 1960 to 1993.
Underwood was a long-standing member of the Society for Psychical Research and the Savage Club. In 1976, a bust of him was sculpted by Patricia Finch - winner of the Gold Medal for Sculpture in Venice.
In recognition of his more than seventy years of paranormal investigations, Underwood became the Patron of The Ghost Research Foundation (founded in Oxford), which termed him the King of Ghost Hunters.
Born in Letchworth in Hertfordshire, Underwood wrote prolifically on ghosts and haunted places within the United Kingdom, and was a leading expert on ‘the most haunted house in England’, Borley Rectory.
An early formative experience came at the age of nine, on the day he learnt of his father’s death; that night, he awoke to see an apparition of his father at the foot of the bed.
Around the same time, he was fascinated to learn of a ghost story associated the old house at Rosehall - where his maternal grandparents lived for a time; it contained a bedroom where guests claimed to see the figure of a headless man..
It was at this young age that Underwood's interest in hauntings and psychic matters began to take root.
On January 1942, Underwood was called up for active service with the Suffolk Regiment. After collapsing at a rifle range at Bury St Edmunds, a serious chest ailment was diagnosed. He was discharged, and returned to his employment at the publishing firm J.M. Dent & Sons.
One of his early investigations was the Borley Rectory haunting, where, over a period of years, Underwood traced and personally interviewed almost every living person who had been connected with the mysterious events surrounding the place.
Underwood built upon the legacy of the work of Harry Price, who had investigated Borley before him. Together with Paul Tabori (literary executor of the Price Estate), Underwood was able to publish all his findings in The Ghosts of Borley (1973).
In his autobiography No Common Task (1983), Underwood remarked that ”98% of reported hauntings have a natural and mundane explanation, but it is the other 2% that have interested me for more than forty years”.
Having joined The Ghost Club back in 1947 - at the personal invitation of Harry Price, Underwood was to become its President for over thirty years: from 1960 to 1993.
Underwood was a long-standing member of the Society for Psychical Research and the Savage Club. In 1976, a bust of him was sculpted by Patricia Finch - winner of the Gold Medal for Sculpture in Venice.
In recognition of his more than seventy years of paranormal investigations, Underwood became the Patron of The Ghost Research Foundation (founded in Oxford), which termed him the King of Ghost Hunters.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 28, 2020
This book is pure gold, one of the best books on vampires I have ever read.
I was ten years old when this was first published in 1975, and I vividly recall it was one of the first books I checked out of the library. Its prose was too much for me at that tender age, but I treasured its memory ever since and when I had the opportunity to buy a copy recently, I leapt at the chance.
I think you maybe need to had grown up in the 1970s to appreciate the nature of this book. It works because it is not a dry, academic treatise, nor is it filled with post-modern winks or remotely concerned with angsty 'feelings' It is powerful and primal. It uses heightened, melodramatic language throughout and is all the richer for it. This extends to the guest authors, such as the purple prose of Sean Manchester as he described the phenomenon of the Highgate Vampire in lurid tones, and also the four short stories which close the volume. The most powerful of these in terms of tone, atmosphere and cumulative dread is undoubtedly the dour 'Domdaniel', but all four are worthy old-school vampire tales.
By 'old school' I mean there are no sparkles or torn emotions here, these are ravening horrors, the living dead, abhorrent to the core. True vampires of myth, in other words. And that is exactly how they should be.
A masterpiece, and one of the few truly essential books on vampires.
I was ten years old when this was first published in 1975, and I vividly recall it was one of the first books I checked out of the library. Its prose was too much for me at that tender age, but I treasured its memory ever since and when I had the opportunity to buy a copy recently, I leapt at the chance.
I think you maybe need to had grown up in the 1970s to appreciate the nature of this book. It works because it is not a dry, academic treatise, nor is it filled with post-modern winks or remotely concerned with angsty 'feelings' It is powerful and primal. It uses heightened, melodramatic language throughout and is all the richer for it. This extends to the guest authors, such as the purple prose of Sean Manchester as he described the phenomenon of the Highgate Vampire in lurid tones, and also the four short stories which close the volume. The most powerful of these in terms of tone, atmosphere and cumulative dread is undoubtedly the dour 'Domdaniel', but all four are worthy old-school vampire tales.
By 'old school' I mean there are no sparkles or torn emotions here, these are ravening horrors, the living dead, abhorrent to the core. True vampires of myth, in other words. And that is exactly how they should be.
A masterpiece, and one of the few truly essential books on vampires.
August 16, 2022
I loved this book, very informative. Couldn’t put it down!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews