The Highgate Vampire
Sean Manchester had hoped that the definitive edition of his book about the Highgate case might set the seal on matters as “the last frenzied flutterings of a force so dight with fearful fascination that even legend could not contain it.” Alas, he was obliged to revisit the “haunted ground” once again in his vampirological guide wherein he announced his withdrawal from personal appearances, explaining that his vampire hunting handbook offered a final “opportunity to share with the reader the perils, pitfalls and pernicious scribblings that have confronted” him over the years. He alluded to what might have been his last television appearance. The following year, however, witnessed the appearance of an incomplete book about vampires by self-styled American occultist Leonard Ashley who suggested Manchester was deceased. Ashley had never had any contact or communication with Manchester and relied on the input of others in the USA who had also had no contact. The publishers refused to withdraw copies leaving the now presumed dead Manchester no choice but to exhume himself “should past acquaintances and old comrades become distressed.”
Fortean Times magazine commented that it was apparently “devastated to learn recently of [Manchester’s] passing,” quickly adding that he “had been hunting vampires live on television as recently as January [1999].” Thus the final transmission in the last century of the celebrated exorcist actually occurred in May 1999. Manchester featured at the top of a three hour television programme devoted to his subject for the BBC. It gave the lie to rumours triggered by the malicious Ashley tome.
Fortean Times’ associate editor, Joe McNally, reviewed The Vampire Hunter’s Handbook and described its author as “someone for whom the description ‘larger than life’ seems barely adequate … an imposing figure … Britain’s only full-time vampire hunter.”
McNally added that “there is more to the book than vampire hunting.” Indeed, there is ~ and there is also a great deal more to Seán Manchester than his role as vampirologist par excellence ~ the cause célèbre, on the morning of 27 February 1970 (prompting his declaration: “I awoke and found myself famous”) being the mysterious case of the Highgate Vampire which, at its inception, was to be recorded in The Vampire’s Bedside Companion (Leslie Frewin, 1995; Coronet, 1976). The complete and unexpurgated account was eventually revealed in his best selling The Highgate Vampire (BOS, 1985; revised and updated edition, Gothic Press, 1991). The latter book remains available as a quality hardcover edition.
See:
http://www.gothicpress.freeserve.co.uk/Vampire Empire.htm