My sisters and I grew up with the knowledge that Bram Stoker was our great-grand uncle; and so we have always felt that his creation, Dracula, is our cousin and that his story is intertwined with our own. Halloween is a big deal for children in Canada, so growing up with a personal Dracula connection caused a certain stir, although it was our friends who were more impressed by the idea than my sisters and I were. Of course, we dressed the part at Halloween, and thanks to the enduring popularity of all things vampire, even today fangs and a cape make a simple, yet unmistakable costume.

Despite the family connection, it may seem surprising that the first time I read Dracula was in college, in order to write a paper on the subject of repressed Victorian sexuality. I read the novel under the pressure of considering such knotty problems as what the characters ‘really’ represented, and all the potential subtexts and ‘deep meanings’ in the book. But almost immediately I was drawn into the narrative and swept away in its tide. I quickly came to the conclusion there is no need to examine it so deeply in order to enjoy Bram’s most famous book. Even now, after all the time I have spent with the novel, I regard Bram as a hard-working and honourable man who happened to write a most remarkable story, and leave the psychoanalysis to others.

While researching that paper I became overwhelmed by the many variations of the story that were available in book and film form. Clearly my ancestor had struck a chord in the popular imagination. But what I found most confounding was that there seemed to be little or no respect for his original work. I became obsessed with the idea of preserving that original vision.

Then I met Ian Holt, a young man who had his own fascination with Dracula and had spent twenty years researching both the historic Prince Dracula and Bram’s Dracula, lecturing and giving papers at scholarly gatherings around the world. At Ian’s suggestion, my wife Jenne and I made a pilgrimage to the Rosenbach Museum in Philadelphia, drawn there like so many others seeking the genesis of Dracula. As I held my ancestor’s jotted notes in my hands, I sensed his presence and felt my connection with him flowing through my veins. It was the first time in my life I had felt so close to him, and this sense was pivotal in prompting me to dig deeper. I realized that my own research methods were similar, for while some of my ideas and information were methodically collected in spiral notebooks or in Word files, at other times I grabbed fleeting ideas, scribbling them on the backs of envelopes or whatever first came to hand.

I discovered that Bram Stoker carried out thorough research before writing Dracula, although he never set foot in the foreign lands he so accurately described in the novel. Instead, he made good use of stories told by my great-grandfather, Bram’s younger brother George, set in the rugged mountains of Eastern Europe where George served in the Red Crescent (originally the Ottoman equivalent to the Red Cross), as well as his own extensive research in the British Museum library. Similarly, in order for Bram’s characters in Whitby to use just a few words of the correct local dialect, Bram compiled for himself an entire dictionary of Yorkshire dialect during his visits to the area.

Sir William Thornley Stoker, Bram’s oldest brother, also contributed to his notes with diagrams and explanations of brain surgery which Bram used to describe Renfield’s medical condition following the severe head and brain injuries inflicted on the character by Dracula.

Ian and I have discussed for hours which of Bram’s notes could have been made for his own inspiration only, necessary for his writing process, but deemed at some point to be unnecessary for the finished book. As notes transformed to novel, certain characters and concepts faded away, digested by the story, hidden to the reader, while still flowing through Bram’s mind. Holes left in the story, intentional or not, have fuelled many debates since the story was first published in 1897.

For example, Inspector Cotford, as originally outlined by Bram, was especially interesting to me, since he does not exist in the published version of Dracula. It seems that the original editor cut him out entirely. Knowing Bram’s degree of meticulous attention to detail, it made no sense to me that police weren’t present in London to investigate a string of corpses. From my background in local search and rescue, I viewed Cotford himself as a missing person, one I was delighted to find: for Ian and I gave him a prominent role in our story: Dracula: The Un-Dead.

I am proud to have Bram Stoker as a relative, as well as many other Stokers, past and present, who have strived to their purpose, and have left high marks in their various pursuits, their professions, military service, sporting endeavours and charity work. In reality, Bram is but one of many Stokers to be admired, and as much as we share characteristics, we also share the family motto, ‘whatever is true and honourable’.

When I introduce myself, someone is likely to ask casually, ‘Any relation to Bram Stoker?’ Until now there has usually been surprise when I answer, yes. Perhaps now, with the publication of the authorized sequel to the original, that will no longer be the case.

But Dracula: The Un-Dead, is more than just a sequel. It is a love letter and thank you to of the millions of fans of Dracula and Bram Stoker around the world, and in it we merge the vampire mythology of my ancestor’s time into those aspects of the genre that are commonly accepted now, all the while attempting to stay true to the historical detail of the time period. I am very honoured to have had the support of my extended Stoker family in resurrecting the historical connection between Dracula and a modernday Stoker, and I think that Bram would be proud that a family member has taken the initiative.

I hope you will greatly enjoy the classic and beloved original novel, and that your curiosity will be sufficiently piqued to read our authorized sequel.

DACRE STOKER, 2009

Authors Note

How these papers have been placed in sequence will be made clear in the reading of them. All needless matters have been eliminated, so that a history almost at variance with the possibilities of latter-day belief may stand forth as simple fact. There is throughout no statement of past events wherein memory may err, for all the records chosen are exactly contemporary, given from the standpoints and within the range of knowledge of those who made them.

Chapter I

JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL

(Kept in shorthand)

3 May. Bistritz.—Left Munich at 8.35 p.m. on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6.46, but train was an hour late. Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. I feared to go very far from the station, as we had arrived late and would start as near the correct time as possible. The impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the East; the most Western of splendid bridges over the Danube, which is here of noble width and depth, took us among the traditions of Turkish rule.

We left in pretty good time, and came after nightfall to Klausenburgh. Here I stopped for the night at the Hôtel Royale. I had for dinner, or rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was very good but thirsty. (Mem., get recipe for Mina.) I asked the waiter, and he said it was called ‘paprika hendl,’ and that, as it was a national dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along the Carpathians. I found my smattering of German very useful here; indeed, I don’t know how I should be able to get on without it.

Having some time at my disposal when in London, I had visited the British Museum, and made search among the books and maps in the library regarding Transylvania; it had struck me that some foreknowledge of the country could hardly fail to have some importance in dealing with a noble of that country. I find that the district he named is in the extreme east of the country, just on the borders of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathian mountains; one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe. I was not able to light on any map or work giving the exact locality of the Castle Dracula, as there are no maps of this country as yet to compare with our own Ordnance Survey maps; but I found that Bistritz, the post town named by Count Dracula, is a fairly well-known place. I shall enter here some of my notes, as they may refresh my memory when I talk over my travels with Mina.

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Брэм Стокер – Dracula (страница 1)

Dracula Bram Stoker

Table of Contents

Foreword

Authors Note

Chapter I JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL (Kept in shorthand)

Dracula

Bram Stoker

Chapter I

JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL

(Kept in shorthand)