OGOM wins Prestigious Book Award

We are extremely proud to announce that the Justin D. Edwards Prize 2026 for an edited collection best advancing the field of gothic studies has been awarded to Sam George and Bill Hughes, eds., The Legacy of John Polidori: The Romantic Vampire and its Progeny (Manchester University Press, 2024). This prestigious prize was awarded to us at the International Gothic Association conference in Hull last week where the OGOM crew were out in force presenting on the conference theme of Gothic Selves/Artificial Others.  You can read OGOM at the IGA…

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Vampiric Origins and Gothic Afterlives: John Polidori and St Pancras Old Churchyard Tour

Date and Time: 18th July 2026, 18:30-19:45 BST (followed by optional drinks from 20:00) Location: St Pancras Old Church Graveyard, Pancras Road, London, UK In this event, Associate Professor Sam Ge…

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Gothic Celebrity: Fame and Immortality from Lord Byron to Lady Gaga

Our guest blog is by Dr Harriet Fletcher, Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication at Anglia Ruskin University. Her new book, Gothic Celebrity: Fame and Immortality from Lord Byron to Lady Gaga (Bloomsbury) is a fascinating study of the relationship between the modern phenomenon of celebrity and the Gothic mode, ranging from John Polidori’s fictional dramatisation of Lord Byron in ‘The Vampyre’, through Oscar Wilde, Hollywood noir, Andy Warhol, Lady Gaga, and What We Do in the Shadows. Dr Fletcher contributed a brilliant chapter on this theme in our collection…

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July Events: Polidori, banshees, vampires, Gothic heroines, Haworth

St Pancras Old Church entrance Vampiric Origins and Gothic Afterlives: John Polidori and St Pancras Old Churchyard tour - plus book offer 18 July 2026 18:30 - 19:45 (GMT +01:00 London), St Pancras Old Churchyard, Pancras Road, LondonDr Sam George, Open Graves, Open Minds Project There are still tickets left for Sam's tour and talk at the beautiful St Pancras Old Churchyard, the resting place of John Polidori, author of The Vampyre and of the wonderful pioneering feminist Mary Wolllstonecratf, mother of Mary Shelley. The place has a fascinating history!

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Vampiric Origins and Gothic Afterlives: John Polidori and St Pancras Old Churchyard Tour

Date and Time: 18th July 2026, Tour 18.30-19.45 GMT (followed by optional drinks from 20.00) Location: St Pancras Old Church Graveyard, Pancras Road, London, UK Event Description In this event, Associate Professor Sam George, Co-convenor of the Open Graves, Open Minds Project and an expert in literary vampires, delves into the origins of the first vampire tale in English, John Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819). This vampire emerged out of the same story-writing competition at the Villa Diodati as did Frankenstein’s monster. Attendees will learn how Polidori transformed the East European peasant vampire of old into a pale-faced, dead-eyed, licentious English aristocrat.

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CFPs and Events: Anne Radcliffe, eco-Gothic, Northanger Abbey, the Weird, Folk Horror, vampires, dragons

Whitby Abbey seen from the south west (by Jeff Buck, CC BY-SA 2.0) There have been a lot of exciting events that I have saved up for a post (unfortunately, I'm too late for some of them, so I apologise to the organisers and to you all!). Events later in July will appear in a subsequent post. CFP: Ann Radcliffe, Then and Now Conference 2027 Ann Radcliffe, Then and Now; University of Sheffield, 24-26 June 2027 Deadline: 15 September 2026 Since 2024, the Ann Radcliffe, Then and Now project, funded by the AHRC, has sought to reintroduce Ann Radcliffe to 21st-century readers by exploring both her contemporary influence and her lasting legacies.

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Dark Enchantments: CFP and Keynote

I am pleased to announce the CFP for Sheffield Gothic’s forthcoming conference Dark Enchantments: Gothic Folklore and the Monstrous Fairy Tale. The conference will take place in Sheffield, UK, on October 29-30, 2026. You can visit the Dark Enchantments website and see the description on the image below for possible submissions and papers (deadline Friday, 31 July). The theme coheres well with OGOM’s research on Gothic Enchantment, and the material that has fed into our forthcoming book Gothic Enchantment with the Fairy Realm in Literature and Culture (Manchester University Press, forthcoming 2026/7).

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Dracula ballet doesn’t suck! – it’s rather good actually. Review of Joel Burke’s Dracula, by Daisy Butcher

Dracula ballet doesn't suck! – it's rather good actually On Saturday, the 6th of June, 2026, I went to Joel Burke’s new ballet adaptation of Dracula at Sadler’s Wells in London. I have always enjoyed ballet performances which explore themes of the supernatural, magical and the Gothic, so when tickets for a ballet revolving around the story of Dracula were announced, I booked right away. With the rise of vampire comedy, fans of the dramatic vampire in all its brooding glory have been under-served in recent times. Burke’s ballet is a refreshing return to the tragic romance of the vampire.

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Doppelgangland - Best Scene

YouTube video by Lando3263827

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Gothic Fairyland Talk & CFP on Fairies

A video of my talk from the International Fairy Seminar in May has now been posted. You can read the synopsis below and watch the video of ‘Gothic Fairyland’ here.   Title: Gothic Fairyland: A dark history of butterfly-winged fairies Synopsis: The current innocent idea of fairyland seems as far away as possible from the shadowy realms of the dead, and yet, despite their wands and glitter, fairies have a dark history. In this talk I will be exploring how fairies came to be associated with spirits of the dead. I probe into the significance of how we lost our fear of fairies and our changing understanding of them (are they immortal or do they fade and die), and trace how they got their butterfly wings.

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