Swieten's Vampyrismus as paperback

'Wo sind die Gesetze, welchen einen solchen Auspruch rechftertigen? Man bekennet, es seyen keine Gesetze vorhanden, hingegen zieht man zur Rechfertigung ganz kaltsinnig an: es sey also der Gebrauch.'

I recall having to wait some time and pay a lot of money to get a microfilm copy of the Abhandlung des Daseyns der Gespenster (Augsburg, 1768) some years ago, because I wanted to read the Gerard van Swieten's appended remarks on vampires. I later found them included on the Vampir Prinzessin DVD and reprinted in the 100 Jahre Dracula issue of Maske und Kothurn (41. Jahrgang Heft 1-2) edited by Rainer M. Köppl and published in 1998.
Now, a paperback of the text has been published by Europaïscher Hochschulverlag. 40 pages for € 16.90, it is certainly much cheaper to obtain than the prints I made from a microfilm. But cheaper still is the Wikisource edition of the whole book that I link to in the right hand panel.

Of particular interest is the Italian edition of Swieten's text reprinted by S. F. Flaccovio Editore in 1988. It contains an essay on I Vampiri di Maria Teresa by Pietro Violante, as well as of Italian translations of some of her decrees on superstitious acts. It is actually still available at the price of € 9.30.

You can take a look inside the new book on German Amazon.