'A daring and thrilling journey into a fantastic world of shamans, vampires and werebears, where Aboriginal Dreaming and Gothic horror are woven together to create a powerful and seamless narrative' (www.goodreads.com), a schooner of Aborigines fleeing colonial Tasmania encounter a vampire who haunts their flight, and infects several of their number (Jason Nahrung, 'Vampires in the Sunburnt Country,' 2007, p.56).
In this chapter, the author argues '...to appreciate the many shapes of the Gothic in Aboriginal literature takes, it is necessary to consider the discursive peculiarities of the Gothic and to rewind to the eighteenth century before fast-forwarding to contemporary Aboriginal literature.' (Introduction)