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SFE: Vampires
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} }) </script> </div> </form> </fieldset> <article class="entryArticle content STeditorial"> <header class="entryHeader icon-theme"> <h1 class="entryTitle">Vampires </h1> </header><p class='tagLine'>Entry updated 3 October 2022. Tagged: Theme.</p><div class="browsingBtns"> <span> <input class="button PNI previous" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?id=p&entry=vampires'" value="Prev" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI next" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?&entry=vampires'" value="Next" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI incoming" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/incoming.php?entry=vampires'" value="About This Entry" title="What links to the entry; contributor initials explained; how to cite; other information" /> </span> </div><p style='float:right; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:10px; position: relative; top: 3px;'> <a href='/gallery.php?id=Schimel-FieldsBlood.jpg' target='_blank'> <img src='https://x.sf-encyclopedia.com/gal/thumbs/Schimel-FieldsBlood.jpg' alt='pic'></a></p> <p>This class of <a href="/entry/supernatural_creatures">Supernatural Creature</a> has effectively spawned its own subgenre, chiefly under the <a href="/entry/fantasy">Fantasy</a> rather than the sf umbrella; they may be concisely defined as "cannibalistic reanimated corpses". Vampires, <a href="/entry/werewolves">Werewolves</a> and other mythic <a href="/entry/shapeshifters">Shapeshifters</a> are endemic in the overlapping genres of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance [for Brian <a href="/entry/stableford_brian_m">Stableford</a>'s definition of Vampires, and for Shapeshifter and Werewolves, see <i>The</i> <a href="/entry/encyclopedia_of_fantasy_the">Encyclopedia of Fantasy</a> under <b>links</b> below]. Vampires normally bear some resemblance (though at times the connection may be tenuous) to their traditional descriptions in what is now described as folklore, originating in Slavonic parts of Eastern Europe. Vampires were not initially, in other words, a literary creation; a rough sense of their nature preceded early written works in which they appear, the first of these seeming to be a doggerel poem, "Der Vampyr" (publication not identified but written 1748) by Heinrich August Ossenfelder (1725-1801). Early vampire fantasies of note in English include a tale embedded in <i>Thalaba the Destroyer</i> (<b>1801</b> 2vols) by Robert Southey (1774-1843) [see <i>The</i> <a href="/entry/encyclopedia_of_fantasy_the">Encyclopedia of Fantasy</a> under <b>links</b> below]; another verse treatment, "The Vampyre" (in <i>The Minstrel of the North: Or, Cumbrian Legends</i> coll <b>1810</b>) by John Stagg (1770-1823); a brief sequence in Lord <a href="/entry/byron_lord">Byron</a>'s <i>The Giaour, a Fragment of a Turkish Tale</i> (<b>1813</b> chap); John <a href="/entry/polidori_john">Polidori</a>'s <i>The Vampyre: A Tale</i> (April 1819 <i>New Monthly Magazine</i>; <b>1819</b> chap) as by the Right Honourable Lord <a href="/entry/byron_lord">Byron</a>; and – most importantly – <i>Dracula</i> (<b>1897</b>) by Bram <a href="/entry/stoker_bram">Stoker</a>. The latter, though based in fantasy, introduces the sf premise that vampires have fixed strengths and weaknesses which, quasi-scientifically understood, allow rational humans to counter the supernatural threat.</p> <p>Early vampire sf tales of some note are Gustave <a href="/entry/le_rouge_gustave">Le Rouge</a>'s <b>Mars</b> sequence beginning with <i>Le Prisonnier de la Planête Mars</i> (<b>1908</b>; rev vt <i>Le Naufrag, de l'espace</i> <b>1912</b>) and featuring winged <a href="/entry/aliens">Alien</a> bloodsuckers on <a href="/entry/mars">Mars</a>; and J-H <a href="/entry/rosny_aine_j_h">Rosny aîné</a>'s <i>Le jeune vampire</i> (<b>1920</b>).</p> <p>Sf authors have devised many rationalizations of vampirism, ranging from pattern-book <a href="/entry/pandemic">Pandemics</a> to the blood-sustained <a href="/entry/aliens">Aliens</a> of A E <a href="/entry/van_vogt_a_e">van Vogt</a>'s "Asylum" (May 1942 <a href="/entry/asf">Astounding</a>) to Theodore <a href="/entry/sturgeon_theodore">Sturgeon</a>'s wholly unfantastic <i>Some of Your Blood</i> (<b>1961</b>), whose tortured and not very dangerous "vampire" – in fact a psychotic – has a fixation on the drinking of menstrual blood which, it gradually emerges, can be traced back to childhood trauma. (Guy <a href="/entry/endore_s_guy">Endore</a>'s <i>The Werewolf of Paris</i> [<b>1933</b>] deals rather similarly with its <a href="/entry/werewolves">Werewolf</a>.) A classic of the middle ground is Richard <a href="/entry/matheson_richard">Matheson</a>'s <i>I Am Legend</i> (<b>1954</b>), which posits vampirism as caused by a contagious disease (to which the protagonist happens to be immune) and painstakingly though at times absurdly explains every aspect of the vampire myth on this basis: bullets do not harm vampires, for example, because the bacteria secrete a powerful "glue" that quickly seals up the holes.</p> <p>A far more plausible rationalization along such lines is <i>The Empire of Fear</i> (<b>1988</b>) by Brian <a href="/entry/stableford_brian_m">Stableford</a>, which like <i>I Am Legend</i> bases the vampire syndrome on a disease (here alien and sexually transmissible) which confers effective immortality; the traditional craving for blood is satisfied by trace quantities only; the whole is a <a href="/entry/alternate_history">Alternate History</a> tour-de-force in which the secret of vampirism, guarded by trappings of horror, is eventually laid bare by the scientific method. Several other sf works place vampires in the natural order of <a href="/entry/ecology">Ecology</a> and <a href="/entry/evolution">Evolution</a>. They are predators in <i>The Vampire Tapestry</i> (coll of linked stories <b>1980</b>) by Suzy McKee <a href="/entry/charnas_suzy_mckee">Charnas</a>, featuring a lone survivor; in Larry <a href="/entry/niven_larry">Niven</a>'s <i>Ringworld Engineers</i> (July 1979-January 1980 <a href="/entry/galileo">Galileo</a>; <b>1980</b>) and <i>The Ringworld Throne</i> (<b>1996</b>), whose human-descended vampires lure and seduce with irresistible pheromones; and in Peter <a href="/entry/watts_peter">Watts</a>'s <i>Blindsight</i> (<b>2006</b>), which ingeniously explains the traditional aversion to crosses (in fact any pattern of rectilinear intersections) as an epilepsy-inducing <a href="/entry/basilisks">Basilisk</a> defect in their nervous systems. Susan C <a href="/entry/petrey_susan_c">Petrey</a>'s <b>Varkela</b> are ethical vampires dispensing healing in exchange for small, agreed payments of blood. In Brian <a href="/entry/aldiss_brian_w">Aldiss</a>'s <i>Dracula Unbound</i> (<b>1991</b>), vampires themselves are portrayed as a vile disease, echoing the syphilis that caused the death of Bram <a href="/entry/stoker_bram">Stoker</a> (who appears as a character, taking over the role of his fictional vampire-hunter Van Helsing). Brian <a href="/entry/stableford_brian_m">Stableford</a>'s <i>Young Blood</i> (<b>1992</b>) features a kind of hallucinated possession by an ambiguous vampire who or which seems to be the side-effect of a retrovirus. Another disease known as Nogales Organic Blood Illness is the cause of vampirism in <i>A People's History of the Vampire Uprising</i> (<b>2018</b>) by Raymond A <a href="/entry/villareal_raymond_a">Villareal</a>.</p> <p>Fred <a href="/entry/saberhagen_fred">Saberhagen</a>'s <b>Dracula</b> sequence, beginning with <i>The Dracula Tape</i> (<b>1975</b>), rehabilitates Bram <a href="/entry/stoker_bram">Stoker</a>'s creation as a virtuous vampire – this was later to become a <a href="/entry/cliches">Cliché</a> – who only rarely takes human blood and whose nature is semi-rationalized in sf terms. The Saberhagen series also features <a href="/entry/sherlock_holmes">Sherlock Holmes</a>, for example in <i>The Holmes-Dracula File</i> (<b>1978</b>); another such crossover story is Loren D <a href="/entry/estleman_loren_d">Estleman</a>'s <i>Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula; or, The Adventures of the Sanguinary Count</i> (<b>1978</b>). Robert <a href="/entry/lory_robert">Lory</a>'s <b>Dracula</b> sequence, beginning with <i>Dracula Returns!</i> (<b>1973</b>), also rehabilitates the character as, ultimately, a <a href="/entry/superheroes">Superhero</a>. He remains a powerful force of evil who weds and vampirizes the unwilling Queen Victoria in Kim <a href="/entry/newman_kim">Newman</a>'s <i>Anno Dracula</i> (<b>1992</b>), whose <a href="/entry/alternate_worlds">Alternate World</a> of vampire-warped history is continued in loose sequels.</p> <p>More metaphorical treatments, featuring soul-suckers rather than literal bloodsuckers, are also common. The psychic vampire of Florence <a href="/entry/marryat_florence">Marryat</a>'s <i>The Blood of the Vampire</i> (<b>1897</b>) drains away life inadvertently by her touch. C L <a href="/entry/moore_c_l">Moore</a>'s "Shambleau" (November 1933 <a href="/entry/weird_tales">Weird Tales</a>) centres on a Medusa-like alien <i>femme fatale</i> with all the vampire's traditional erotic charge. The invisible Vitons of Eric Frank <a href="/entry/russell_eric_frank">Russell</a>'s <i>Sinister Barrier</i> (March 1939 <a href="/entry/unknown">Unknown</a>; <b>1943</b>; rev <b>1948</b>) feed on human emotions and foment <a href="/entry/war">War</a> to maximize our fear and agony. C M <a href="/entry/kornbluth_c_m">Kornbluth</a>'s psychic vampire in "The Mindworm" (December 1950 <a href="/entry/worlds_beyond">Worlds Beyond</a>), is a telepathic <a href="/entry/mutants">Mutant</a> created by atomic radiation; the quasi-vampires of Randall <a href="/entry/garrett_randall">Garrett</a>'s "The Breakfast Party" (November 1953 <i>Mystic</i> as "League of the Living Dead"; vt in <i>Takeoff Too!</i>, coll <b>1987</b>) are a sentient psi disease that inhabits and animates dead bodies; further psychic vampires feast on living victims' life-force in Colin <a href="/entry/wilson_colin">Wilson</a>'s <i>The Space Vampires</i> (<b>1976</b>; vt <i>Lifeforce</i> <b>1985</b>) – which also homages A E <a href="/entry/van_vogt_a_e">van Vogt</a>'s "Asylum" (May 1942 <a href="/entry/asf">Astounding</a>) – and in David <a href="/entry/mitchell_david">Mitchell</a>'s <i>Slade House</i> (<b>2015</b>), or on their memories and experiences in <i>Carrion Comfort</i> (September-October 1983 <a href="/entry/omni">Omni</a>; much exp <b>1989</b>) by Dan <a href="/entry/simmons_dan">Simmons</a>. Dementors, introduced into the <b>Harry Potter</b> fantasy saga by J K Rowling (1965- ) in <i>Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban</i> (<b>1999</b>), are <a href="/entry/supernatural_creatures">Supernatural Creatures</a> capable of reducing a human to a soulless vegetable. The highly unpleasant, mind-eating "slake-moths" of China <a href="/entry/mieville_china">Miéville</a>'s <i>Perdido Street Station</i> (<b>2000</b>) may be mutants or aliens. Energy-eating vampires also feature in <i>The Vampires of Avonmouth</i> (<b>2021</b>) by Tim <a href="/entry/kindberg_tim">Kindberg</a>.</p> <p>Witty <a href="/entry/feminism">Feminist</a> subtexts appear in Jody <a href="/entry/scott_jody">Scott</a>'s vampire <a href="/entry/satire">Satire</a> <i>I, Vampire</i> (<b>1984</b>) and in Lucy <a href="/entry/sussex_lucy">Sussex</a>'s "God and Her Black Sense of Humour" (in <i>My Lady Tongue & Other Tales</i>, coll <b>1990</b>), whose vampires prove to drink not blood but semen.</p> <p>Other sf, or at least more or less science-fictionalized, vampire tales include: the initial <a href="/entry/aliens">Alien</a> origin story for the <a href="/entry/comics">Comics</a> character <a href="/entry/vampirella">Vampirella</a> (which see); <i>Vampire Junction</i> (<b>1984</b>) and <i>Valentine</i> (<b>1992</b>) by S P <a href="/entry/somtow_s_p">Somtow</a>; Barbara <a href="/entry/hambly_barbara">Hambly</a>'s <i>Those Who Hunt the Night</i> (<b>1988</b>; vt <i>Immortal Blood</i> <b>1988</b>); Kim <a href="/entry/newman_kim">Newman</a>'s <i>Bad Dreams</i> (<b>1990</b>), with <a href="/entry/shapeshifters">Shapeshifting</a> vampires; John <a href="/entry/steakley_john">Steakley</a>'s <i>Vampire$</i> (<b>1990</b>; vt <i>Vampires</i> <b>2008</b>); and <i>The Hunger and Ecstasy of Vampires</i> (January-February 1995 <a href="/entry/interzone">Interzone</a>; exp <b>1996</b>) by Brian <a href="/entry/stableford_brian_m">Stableford</a>, recasting the myth in terms of <a href="/entry/scientific_romance">Scientific Romance</a>. Another important vampire title is Nancy Collins's (1959- ) <i>Sunglasses After Dark</i> (<b>1989</b>; text restored <b>2000</b>). Terry <a href="/entry/pratchett_terry">Pratchett</a>'s <i>Carpe Jugulum</i> (<b>1998</b>), though couched as comic fantasy, considers the logistics of vampire proliferation and containment; several other volumes of the <b>Discworld</b> sequence establish that vampires are to be tolerated only if they abstain from human blood and confine themselves to that of animals, and <i>The Truth</i> (<b>2000</b>) develops the point with appropriate vampire temperance hymns. Christopher <a href="/entry/farnsworth_christopher">Farnsworth</a>'s contemporary <b>President's Vampire</b> sequence, beginning with <i>Blood Oath</i> (<b>2010</b>), features a vampire protagonist, here defined as an "apex predator", who has been in the service of the American government since 1867. Charles <a href="/entry/stross_charles">Stross</a> has a typically skewed take on the theme in his <b>Laundry</b> novel <i>The Rhesus Chart</i> (<b>2014</b>), in which although the received wisdom is that vampires do not exist, a working group of young City of <a href="/entry/london">London</a> bankers achieves the transformation by visualizing arcane <a href="/entry/mathematics">Mathematics</a>. </p> <p>Further offbeat variations include Roger <a href="/entry/zelazny_roger">Zelazny</a>'s <i>This Immortal</i> (October-November 1965 <a href="/entry/fsf">F&SF</a> as "... And Call Me Conrad"; exp <b>1966</b>), featuring a kind of artificial vampire warrior – an outsized albino <a href="/entry/mutants">Mutant</a> brought up to drink his victims' blood. The same author's "The Stainless Steel Leech" (April 1963 <a href="/entry/amazing">Amazing</a>) as by Harrison Denmark centres on a vampiric <a href="/entry/robots">Robot</a> that drains power from the batteries of fellow-robots. Vampiric traits are often found in extraterrestrial <a href="/entry/monsters">Monsters</a>, like the intelligent Coeurl in A E <a href="/entry/van_vogt_a_e">van Vogt</a>'s "Black Destroyer" (July 1939 <a href="/entry/asf">Astounding</a>) or the non-sapient "hooded dracula" in George R R <a href="/entry/martin_george_r_r">Martin</a>'s "The Plague Star" (January-February 1985 <a href="/entry/analog">Analog</a>). A bloodsucking human/moth hybrid is the titular predator of <i>The</i> <a href="/entry/blood_beast_terror_the">Blood Beast Terror</a> (<i>1968</i>; vt <i>The Vampire Beast Craves Blood</i> US).</p> <p>Notable vampire series have been written by Anne <a href="/entry/rice_anne">Rice</a>, blending the vampire and mummy themes in her <b>Vampire Chronicles</b>; by Chelsea Quinn <a href="/entry/yarbro_chelsea_quinn">Yarbro</a>, with her <b>Saint-Germain</b> vampire series from 1978 on; by Laurell K Hamilton (1963- ) with her <b>Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter</b> series from 1993 on; by Jim Butcher (1971- ) with his <b>Dresden Files</b> series from 2000 on – in which urban consultant wizard Harry Dresden is pitted against the entire gamut of supernatural menace, though vampires on the whole predominate; by Charlaine Harris (1951- ) with her <b>Sookie Stackhouse</b> series (televised as <i>True Blood</i>) from 2001 on – this sequence also features numerous <a href="/entry/shapeshifters">Shapeshifters</a>; and by Stephenie Meyer (1973- ) in her very popular and film-adapted <b>Twilight</b> sequence from 2005. All these books – whose overall standard is reasonably high – lie somewhere between sf explication and supernatural horror, none of them fitting purely in one genre or the other, though leaning considerably towards <a href="/entry/fantasy">Fantasy</a>. Often sf extrapolation is confined to the <a href="/entry/sociology">Sociology</a> of nonhuman <a href="/entry/wainscot_societies">Wainscot Societies</a> or the <a href="/entry/politics">Politics</a> whereby, as in Charlaine Harris's sequence, known vampire enclaves coexist with the human majority in US communities.</p> <p>With so much work of this sort being produced – the cited texts are merely a fraction of the whole – it almost seemed as if a new genre was in the making, not so much pure horror as the semirationalized "horror romance", a kind of half-sister to the <a href="/entry/scientific_romance">Scientific Romance</a>. A great deal of work of this kind, with <a href="/entry/werewolves">Werewolves</a> and other <a href="/entry/supernatural_creatures">Supernatural Creatures</a> stirred into the mix, is now classed as Urban Fantasy and/or Paranormal Romance [see <i>The</i> <a href="/entry/encyclopedia_of_fantasy_the">Encyclopedia of Fantasy</a> under <b>links</b> below]; <a href="/entry/steampunk">Steampunk</a> romps may also incorporate vampires and their kin, as in the <b>Parasol Protectorate</b> series by Gail <a href="/entry/carriger_gail">Carriger</a>, opening with <i>Soulless</i> (<b>2009</b>).</p> <p>For the very extensive field of Vampire Movies, see <i>The</i> <a href="/entry/encyclopedia_of_fantasy_the">Encyclopedia of Fantasy</a> [under <b>links</b> below]. Examples with entries in the present encyclopedia are <i>The</i> <a href="/entry/vampire_bat_the">Vampire Bat</a> (<i>1933</i>), whose apparent vampire activity cloaks a <a href="/entry/mad_scientist">Mad Scientist</a>'s murderous doings; <i>The</i> <a href="/entry/vampire_the">Vampire</a> (<i>1957</i>; vt <i>Mark of the Vampire</i>), using the traditional B-movie device that any serum derived from animals (here vampire bats) will confer the least desirable characteristics of that creature; <a href="/entry/blood_of_the_vampire">Blood of the Vampire</a> (<i>1958</i>), with another non-vampire mad scientist requiring copious blood for experiments; <i>L'</i> <a href="/entry/ultimo_uomo_della_terra_l">Ultimo Uomo della Terra</a> (<i>1964</i>; vt <i>The Last Man on Earth</i>) and <i>The</i> <a href="/entry/omega_man_the">Omega Man</a> (<i>1971</i>), both based on Richard <a href="/entry/matheson_richard">Matheson</a>'s <i>I Am Legend</i> (<b>1954</b>); <a href="/entry/scream_and_scream_again">Scream and Scream Again</a> (<i>1969</i>); <a href="/entry/lifeforce">Lifeforce</a> (<i>1985</i>), based on Colin <a href="/entry/wilson_colin">Wilson</a>'s <i>The Space Vampires</i> (<b>1976</b>; vt <i>Lifeforce</i> <b>1985</b>); <a href="/entry/near_dark">Near Dark</a> (<i>1987</i>), featuring a semi-sf cure for vampirism via blood transfusion; <a href="/entry/daybreakers">Daybreakers</a> (<i>2010</i>); and <a href="/entry/priest">Priest</a> (<i>2011</i>), with a <a href="/entry/post-holocaust">Post-Holocaust</a> Wild West setting.</p> <p><a href="/entry/television">Television</a> series treatments of the theme include <a href="/entry/dark_shadows">Dark Shadows</a> (<i>1966-1971</i>), <i>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</i> (<i>1997-2003</i>), <i>Blade</i> (<i>1998</i>), <a href="/entry/ultraviolet">Ultraviolet</a> (<i>1998</i>), <i>True Blood</i> (<i>2008-2014</i>) and <a href="/entry/what_we_do_in_the_shadows">What We Do in the Shadows</a> (<i>2019</i>-current).</p> <p>Relevant <a href="/entry/anthologies">Anthologies</a> are very numerous indeed; about twenty were edited or co-edited by Martin H <a href="/entry/greenberg_martin_h">Greenberg</a> (whom see). [DRL/PN]</p> <p><b>see also:</b> <a href="/entry/kolchak_the_night_stalker">Kolchak: The Night Stalker</a>; <a href="/entry/parasitism_and_symbiosis">Parasitism and Symbiosis</a>.</p> <p><b>further reading</b></p> <ul class="x"> <li>Leonard G Heldreth and Mary Pharr, editors. <em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=The+Blood+Is+the+Life+Vampires+in+Literature&field-author=Leonard+G+Heldreth+and+Mary+Pharr" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">The Blood Is the Life: Vampires in Literature</a></em> (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, <b>1999</b>) [nonfiction: anth: hb/]</li> <li>James Craig Holte. <em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=The+Fantastic+Vampire+Studies+in+the+Children+of&field-author=James+Craig+Holte" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">The Fantastic Vampire: Studies in the Children of the Night: Selected Essays from the Eighteenth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts</a></em> (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, <b>2002</b>) [nonfiction: hb/nonpictorial]</li> <li>Richard Sugg. <em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=Mummies+Cannibals+and+Vampires+The+History+of&field-author=Richard+Sugg" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians</a></em> (Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, <b>2011</b>) [nonfiction: hb/from Thomas De Critz]</li> <li>Nick Groom. <em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=The+Vampire+A+New+History&field-author=Nick+Groom" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">The Vampire: A New History</a></em> (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, <b>2018</b>) [nonfiction: hb/]</li> <li>Violet Fenn. <em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=A+History+of+the+Vampire+in+Popular+Culture+Love&field-author=Violet+Fenn" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">A History of the Vampire in Popular Culture: Love at First Bite</a></em> (Barnsley, Yorkshire: Pen and Sword, <b>2021</b>) [nonfiction: hb/]</li> </ul> <p><b>links</b></p> <ul class="x"> <li><a target="_blank" href="https://sf-encyclopedia.com/fe/"><em>The Encyclopedia of Fantasy</em></a>: <a target="_blank" href="https://sf-encyclopedia.com/fe/paranormal_romance">Paranormal Romance</a>; <a target="_blank" href="https://sf-encyclopedia.com/fe/urban_fantasy">Urban Fantasy</a>; <a target="_blank" href="https://sf-encyclopedia.com/fe/southey_robert">Robert Southey</a>; <a target="_blank" href="https://sf-encyclopedia.com/fe/vampire_movies">Vampire Movies</a>; <a target="_blank" href="https://sf-encyclopedia.com/fe/werewolves">Werewolves</a></li> </ul> <p><b>previous versions of this entry</b></p> <ul><li><a href='https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/vampires' target='_blank'>Internet Archive</a></li></ul><br /><br /></article></div> <div class="sideBarsWrapper"> <div class="sideBarsColsWrapper clearfix"> <div class="column sideBar12 clearfix"> <div class="columnForm"><aside id="blogFeed" class="widget"> <div class="content STeditorial clearfix"> <h2>Recently visited entries<span style="background:url(/images/thingSFE2.png) !important"></span></h2><ul style='width: 50%; float: left;'> </ul> <p align=center style="float:right; padding-top:20px; 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