Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 22, 2017
A vampire is a being from folklore who subsists on the blood or life essence of the living. In European folklore, vampires were shroud-wearing undead beings who often visited loved ones and caused mischief in the neighbourhoods they inhabited when they were alive. Before the early 19th century, they were described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's gaunt, pale vampire. The term vampire was popularised in the West in the early 18th century, after vampire legends from oral traditions of ethnic groups of the Balkans and Eastern Europe were recorded and published. The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the publication of The Vampyre by John Polidori; the story was highly successful and arguably the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century. The modern basis of the vampire legend comes from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, considered the quintessential vampire novel. The success of this book spawned a distinctive vampire genre, still popular in the 21st century. (Full article...)