I've thought of an earlier, but non-literary, "good" vampire: Barnabas Collins from
Dark Shadows. It's not a show I ever saw, but Barnabas's trajectory seems similar to Silas's, an early evil non-life which segued into working on the side of good.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl
One of the things that I liked about The Graveyard Book was that it took these figures of fear and a scary place like a graveyard and made them friendly and home-like and safe to Bod. I think in the book the graveyard area was even described as part of a nature preserve for the community. Gaiman obviously has a different perspective on graveyards since he took his young son to play in one, which inspired him for the setting of this book.
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I think graveyards of a certain vintage are very friendly and places of fascination to children. Where I live, there are very old family plots all over the place, by the side of the road, in open spaces, even in the middle of the woods. I can't imagine taking a child to play in one of the modern manicured cemeteries, but a place that's overgrown, with tumbled headstones, crumbling mausoleums, hard if not impossible to decipher inscriptions, is endlessly interesting and provides a lot of room to roam, run and even ride a bicycle as with Gaiman's son without fear.