The Highgate Vampire is a 1985 book by Sean Manchester, giving his own detailed first-hand account of the Highgate Vampire case, which had unfolded in North London some fifteen years earlier. It was first published by the British Occult Society, and has since appeared in several revised editions from Gothic Press, including one in 1991.
Overview
The book combines eyewitness testimony, personal recollection, and Manchester's own interpretation of the reported sightings, graveyard disturbances, and occult activity surrounding Highgate Cemetery from the late 1960s onward. It sets out the theory Manchester first advanced to the press in 1970 — that a medieval Wallachian nobleman's body had been transported to England and later awoken by modern occultists — and gives his account of the case's conclusion, including his claimed staking, decapitation, and burning of the entity's remains in 1973.
Reception
The book has drawn a sharply divided response since publication. Supporters, including fellow ghost researcher Peter Underwood, praised it as a detailed and significant record of the case. Critics have been considerably harsher: horror writer Ramsey Campbell published a critical essay, "The Strange Case of Seán Manchester," in his collection Ramsey Campbell, Probably (2002), and reader reviews have frequently described the book as self-aggrandising or difficult to credit as a factual account, with some noting the absence of independent witnesses corroborating Manchester's central claims. The case itself, independent of Manchester's own book, has also been examined from a scholarly folklore perspective, notably in Bill Ellis's 1993 journal article "The Highgate Cemetery Vampire Hunt" in Folklore.
The book stands alongside David Farrant's own competing account, Beyond the Highgate Vampire (1991), as one of the two primary published sources for the case, with the two books frequently characterised as continuing the authors' personal rivalry in print as much as documenting the events themselves.