Classics and the Western Canon discussion

In order to keep the weekly discussions focused on the text of the work, this is the place for topics external to the text but deserving of a more detailed discussion. The posts welcome here include:
1. Background, context, history, author biography, the various editions available.
2. Extrinsic commentary and criticism of a scholarly nature.
3. The many stage and screen adaptations.
4. Debates on vampire lore, e.g., vampires do not sparkle.
5. Any lengthy/scholarly posts on the psychology and attitudes toward sex, especially during the Victorian age that the book lends itself to are welcomed here as well.

Finally, for those who are unfamiliar with Dracula, or only thought they were familiar with it, please avoid spoilers by posting comments at the appropriate time during the discussion or keeping them contained within spoiler tags. Pop culture and the poetic license over the 124 years that have passed since the work was published has taken a toll on many events and subtle nuances of the work that may be surprising to some readers regardless of their familiarity with it. Be sure and let us know what you are surprised to learn differently by reading it straight from the source.

There are plenty of free editions to be found on the internet, including a Modern Library edition here: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dracula and on Project Gutenberg in a few electronic formats here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/345. There are also plenty of options out there in every range of price. If you found a good one, let us know. Here are the texts and audio book editions I will be using for this read:

1. There are plenty of great annotations in this edition about the way Stoker crafted his work from a writer's perspective.
Stoker, Bram; Castle, Mort. Dracula (Writer's Digest Annotated Classics) . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Annotations by Mort Castle, Forward by Jonathan Maberry
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B...

2. This was one of the more helpful traditionally annotated versions I could find.
Stoker, Bram. Dracula (Annotated). BARNES & NOBLE. Kindle Edition.
Introduction and Notes by Brooke Allen
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B...

3. Dracula [Audible Edition]
Narrated by: Alan Cumming, Tim Curry, Simon Vance, Katherine Kellgren, Susan Duerden, John Lee, Graeme Malcolm, Steven Crossley
https://www.audible.com/pd/Dracula-Au...

Just for some historical perspective, on Transylvania (not England):
Transylvania, Moldavia, Romania are part of the Balkan region, which was always in turmoil, even war, which came to a head in 1914 with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of the Habsburgs in Sarajevo, Serbia, in 1914. Romania was indeed rife with ethnic and national conflict. Much blood was spilled throughout the region throughout the Nineteenth Century. Actual war broke out by 1910-1911, and guerilla activity was constant.

My apologies, Stoker was Irish. I do not know where he wrote the novel.

Sam, except for a brief personal union in 1600, we can't talk about "Romania" until the second half of the 19th century. In the 15th century, there were three separate principalities: Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia. Transylvania was part of the Kingdom of Hungary, while Moldavia & Wallachia were more or less independent, but paid tribute to the Ottoman Empire.

Dracula was loosely based on two intriguing historical figures: the Wallachian prince Vlad the Impaler (15th century) and the Hungarian countess Erzsebet Bathory (16th century). I was born in Transylvania and I grew up with stories about them, I will share some of them in the following weeks.

Thanks Sam and Emil I am looking forward to more historical background. This is definitely the spot for those incites and the stories Emil refers to. It is always interesting to me to learn the real history behind the regional stories that are eventually written into legends and myths.

I find it amazing that Stoker, while well traveled due to the world tours his career as the business manager of the actor Sir Henry Irving's Lyceum Theatre took him on, he never visited the Eastern Europe and conducted most of his research for Dracula from the London Library.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_St...

Dracula identifies himself as a "Székely". This ethnic group is not very well known, so I will write some interesting facts regarding their origins.

Historically, they have claimed descended from the Huns. The 13th-century Gesta Hungarorum also mentioned that the Székelys were "the peoples of Attila the Hun" and they were already been present in the Carpathian Basin before the Hungarians conquered the territory in the 9th century. A magyarisation process followed and they ended up speaking Hungarian. This was the mainstream theory in the 19th century and this is how their origin is explained in Dracula.

Other theories associated the Székelys with Scythians, Gepids, Avars, Bulgarians, Kabars, or even magyarised Romanians.

However, most modern historians agree that the Székelys are descendants of Hungarians and they were placed in the eastern Carpathian Mountains to guard the frontier. Recent genetic studies are confirming that there is no significant difference between Székelys and Hungarians. From a linguistic perspective, the Székelys speak the Hungarian language "without any trace of a Turkic substratum", indicating that they did not have a language shift during their history.

Happy birthday to Bram Stoker, born November 8, 1847.

BTW, Dracula readers might be interested in some of the Dracula programs of the Rosenbach museum. The museum highlights its works by James Joyce, Herman Melville, Marianne Moore, Lewis Carroll, and many others, including a program they did last year called “Sundays with Dracula” in these free videos: https://rosenbach.org/program-videos/. (scroll down, way down, to see). Right now, they are offering a for-fee course on Bram Stoker’s notes for Dracula. https://rosenbach.org/events/virtual-....

Also, The Forum from BBC world service has a podcast on Dracula. I haven't had time to hear it yet, so I don't know anything about it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cs...

David wrote: "...It is always interesting to me to learn the real history behind the regional stories that are eventually written into legends and myths...."

Anyone here have comments on the value/veracity of Dracula in Istanbul: The Unauthorized Version of the Gothic Classic by Ali Rıza Seyfioğlu? It came up on my initial Goodreads page a few weeks ago.

Tamara's excellent insight into The Demeter, and how the name of the ship carrying Dracula to England ties into Demeter from mythology reminds me of an upcoming movie that may be of interest.

Tamara's comment is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

The Last Voyage of the Demeter is scheduled to open in theaters on January 27, 2023 and is now in post production. Hopefully we will get some trailers soon to help tide us over until its release.

Based on a single chilling chapter from Bram Stoker's classic novel "Dracula", the movie tells the story of the merchant ship chartered to carry private cargo from Carpathia to London

https://amblin.com/movie/the-last-voy...

David wrote: "The Last Voyage of the Demeter is scheduled to open in theaters on January 27, 2023 and is now in post production. Hopefully we will get some trailers soon to help tide us over until its release..."

That looks fascinating--but very, very spooky. I might just muster the courage to see it.

Read Melville's short story "Benito Cereno". Ghostship
with dead bodies.

Borum wrote: "Tell me about it. I'm listening to the audiobook that is narrated by different actors and Lucy's voice is done by Susan Duerden who sounds weirdly high-pitched and sort of frail and passive and it's simply irritating (especially the weird freakish supposedly american accent)."

I am listening to the same audiobook. Lucy does sound a bit over-the-top breathy, like she is doing a Marilyn Munroe Happy Birthday to JFK impersonation. But to be fair, her portrayal fits the author's intention of a flirtatious, rich and attractive, but frustrated socialite.

I do like the audiobook, but It is also strange to hear each composer of each entry do the dialog of others in their own voice instead of the actors speaking their own parts in each other notes. Thus we get Lucy trying to do both sides of her conversation with Quincy. Personally, I would like to hear Tim Curry doing more of his Van Helsing, but we get most of his dialog from Alan Cumming's Dr. Seward except for a few letters and telegrams that Van Helsing himself creates.

Whitby

Whitby is another real place, and I only spent a short time googling it before deciding I should like to see it for myself. I would be interested to hear from any our members who have visited Whitby.

One can start here: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/v...

Then I recommend doing your own google searches for sites and images using these terms: "Whitby Dracula abbey 199 steps graveyard" to see the inspiring setting that Stoker did for Dracula's arrival.

David wrote: "I recommend doing your own google searches for sites and images using these terms: "Whitby Dracula abbey 199 steps graveyard" to see the inspiring setting that Stoker did for Dracula's arrival...."

great to see this imagery .. and bring it into the imagination while reading.
The website Deadgood travel - A travel guide dedicated to tombstone tourism has some good Whitby graveyard photos and connections to the Bram Stokers' Dracula but there is unfortunately at least one spoiler for the stage of the book we are at as I write.
https://deadgoodtravel.com/2017/12/10...

Lisa wrote: "A travel guide dedicated to tombstone tourism has some good Whitby graveyard photos "

Thanks for the link, Lisa. Now, I want to visit Whitby even more than before.

David wrote: "... Now, I want to visit Whitby even more than before."

One of the "thin places"? (I haven't yet perused the links.)

Been reading Tamara's and David's back-and-forths on Lucy and Mina. Thought that occurred to me from my many verbal duels with writers I converse with from writing seminars: stories, and their characters, often reflect their writers, consciously or unconsciously. Made me curious about the biography of Stoker. In all honesty, the article here wasn't particularly helpful or insightful: https://www.biography.com/writer/bram...

Location, Location, Location, and direction
Now that we know from Renfield's behavior that Dracula has taken up residence in his Carfax estate, at least part of the time, here is a link to some considerations for just what Dracula's presence in London represented to contemporary readers, some of which is still prescient today. History may not repeat itself, but it seems to rhyme.

There are also several maps that you may find useful in fixing the locations of a couple of real places, and a narrowing down where the fictitious places are. WARNING: There are some spoilers here in the discussion of a few locations and events we have not got to yet.
http://www.literarylondon.org/london-...

The Flea
The Flea by John Donne may provide some insight into a not so hidden sexual aspect of the blood transfusions, Dracula's blood sucking, and general attitudes towards the mingling of bodily fluids. Lucy's lament, Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble? But this is heresy, and I must not say it., appears to be answered; she can, and does, nay more than marries. . .

The Flea by John Donne

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than we would do.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, nay more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, w'are met,
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that, self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st, and say'st that thou
Find’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;
’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:
Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,
Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem...

David wrote: "Whitby

Whitby is another real place, and I only spent a short time googling it before deciding I should like to see it for myself. I would be interested to hear from any our members who have visit..."

I spent a night or two in Whitby in 1987. I was studying for a year at Durham University, and it was one of the first places I ever traveled by myself. I was surprised to find it described here in such detail--and pretty much as I remembered it--the churchyard up on a bluff, the sheltered harbor below. It appears to be one of those timeless places. I spent the night in a hostel, where a group of English schoolchildren were staying on a field trip. When they found out I was an American, they asked this East Coast girl whether I had ever been to Texas and whether I had ever met a cowboy. :)

Thanks for the links to the Whitby Abbey photo.

Since we were comparing Dracula to other classics of the western canon, including one of my favorites, Moby Dick, I will mention this part of Van Helsing's King Laugh speech...

Ah, we men and women are like ropes drawn tight with strain that pull us different ways. Then tears come; and, like the rain on the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps the strain become too great, and we break.

...brought to mind Chapter 60 The Line from Moby Dick

so the graceful repose of the line, as it silently serpentines about the oarsmen before being brought into actual play—this is a thing which carries more of true terror than any other aspect of this dangerous affair. But why say more? All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life.

Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick (Third Edition) (Norton Critical Editions): (p. 372). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.

Kathy wrote: "When they found out I was an American, they asked this East Coast girl whether I had ever been to Texas and whether I had ever met a cowboy. :) ..."

You can imagine the questions I've got in the UK when they found out I was from Transylvania...

Reminds me of this joke:

Son: Mom, my friends are making fun of me because I come from Transylvania, they keep saying I'm a vampire!
Mom: Nonsense, don't listen do them. Now eat your soup before it coagulates!

David wrote: "Since we were comparing Dracula to other classics of the western canon, including one of my favorites, Moby Dick, I will mention this part of Van Helsing's King Laugh speech...
Ah, we men and wom..."

And Ahab a possible resemblance to Drac? No?

Sam wrote: "And Ahab a possible resemblance to Drac? No?"

How so?

The monomania,. for Drac, is the unquenchable craving for blood. Unconcern for collateral damage. Association with the stormy seas that bring The Varna into port. There's an aura, or charisma, about the character. How Drac is the Ringmaster, with the plot swirling around him and his quest. A bit of a stretch, I admit. But just glad to get Moby Dick into the script. and there is a sense of Evil in the presence of the Madman, Ahab, or Dracula.

Sam wrote: "The monomania,. for Drac, is the unquenchable craving for blood. Unconcern for collateral damage. Association with the stormy seas that bring The Varna into port. There's an aura, or charisma, abou..."

I would add Dracula controls the weather the way Ahab drove through the storm with full sail and controlled St. Elmo's Fire.

Some of the same could be said of Van Helsing. He drops everything to come and help Dr. Seward with Lucy and then obsessively works to protect her, but always controlling the knowledge and keeping it to himself, like Ahab's map.

For those that celebrated thanksgiving, I hope you had a good one. I understand "the count" had a good thanksgiving, as seen in this rare family photo.

A little more on the Bloofer Lady

Leslie Ann Minot pointed out, in a 2017 essay on Lucy Westenra and other 19th century female characters, that if Dracula is an overt portrayal of a sexualized monster, then Westenra is problematic since her attacks on children would then equate to "the sweet Lucy sexually molesting toddlers"; Minot sees this as one reason why the character has received less attention than others. She historicizes the character (and the novel) by placing it against a backdrop of a number of well-publicized cases of child molestation and abuse of children by mother figures, particularly in the context of baby farming (she cites the case of Margaret Waters). Victorian society had begun to take an interest in the welfare of children, resulting in the Factory Act of 1891 and the foundation of the SPCC, which would become the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.[4]

Stoker was well aware of these developments, and was close friends with W. T. Stead, the newspaper editor who supported the SPCC, published lurid accounts of child abuse, and was himself jailed for the abduction of a 13-year old girl, which he organized as a demonstration. Stoker used newspaper clippings in the novel which are pastiches of the sensationalist writings of Stead and others about child prostitution, in particular Stead's "The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon", and he describes the lower-class victims in much the same way. Their childish talk leads to "bloofer lady", as a child's way of saying "beautiful lady". This "bloofer lady" talks to children and lures them with the promise of riches and games, and after their return, bearing bite marks, become emaciated and weak and wish to return to the "bloofer lady". All this is described in language similar to that of newspaper reports on women seducing children into prostitution. Minot also called Lucy "a demonic mother-parody, taking nourishment from children instead of giving it".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_We...

Minot, Leslie Ann (2017). "Vamping the Children: The 'Bloofer Lady', the 'London Minotaur' and Child-Victimization in Late Nineteenth-Century England". In Maunder, Andrew; Moore, Grace (eds.). Victorian Crime, Madness and Sensation. Routledge. ISBN 9781351875929.

David wrote: "The Flea by John Donne may provide some insight ... Lucy's lament, Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble? But this is heresy, and I must not say it., appears to be answered; she can, and does, nay more than marries. . .."

and did Dracula laugh from the sidelines as, in their attempts to save Lucy, he, in turn, has fed upon all three of them

David wrote: "A little more on the Bloofer Lady

Leslie Ann Minot pointed out, in a 2017 essay on Lucy Westenra and other 19th century female characters, that if Dracula is an overt portrayal of a sexualized mon..."

OMG that is even more disturbing than sucking the blood out of children.. especially their wish to 'return to the bloofer lady..' Shivers.

A commentary on Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, and Dracula that some may find interesting.

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/11248/su...

Similarly: https://www.academia.edu/9613687/_A_V...

Miasma
When the men enter Carfax the first time, Jonathan describes the air of the place,

There was an earthy smell, as of some dry miasma, which came through the fouler air.

Some searches on google for miasma resulted in the informative PDF linked to below.

Dang, Duy (2013) A Disease with a Bite: Vampirism and Infection Theories in Bram Stoker's Dracula, XULAneXUS: Vol. 10 : Iss. 2 ,
Article 1.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.xula.edu/xulan...

Abstract
This literary analysis takes a historicist approach to Bram Stoker’s 1897 gothic novel, Dracula, and places the novel’s images of vampirism and disease in the context of Victorian medical knowledge. In studying Dracula and its subtext, it can be seen that vampirism is not only a curse that resurrects the dead as bloodsucking monsters, but is also a metaphor for disease. As a disease, vampirism can be seen relating to several illnesses present in Bram Stoker’s time (such as cholera) through the concepts and necessary conditions for infection (e.g. mist and stagnant water), which can be seen in the viewpoints of three theories of infection: miasmatism, contagionism, and germ theory. Furthermore, vampirism can be associated with animal related illnesses (such as rabies and the bubonic plague) through Dracula’s metamorphosis and control of animals. Finally, vampirism can also be associated with the venereal diseases (such as syphilis) of Bram Stoker’s time through the infection of Lucy Westenra and Mina Harker.

By the way, the author just needs to pass the bar and we would have another Van Helsing in the making

Dang plans to attend medical school and become a physician. Dang’s research interests include disease, folklore, leadership, medicine, and the supernatural.

David wrote: "Miasma
When the men enter Carfax the first time, Jonathan describes the air of the place,
There was an earthy smell, as of some dry miasma, which came through the fouler air.
Some searches on goo..."

Thanks so much for this post. Very interesting!

Do you think Dracula lives up to its cover?

What did the first edition of Dracula look like, and why?
The cover design is simple but striking: bold red lettering standing out against a yellow cover. Yellow was synonymous with the more adventurous and transgressive elements of the Victorian fin de siècle*. It was the colour used for the jackets of disreputable French novels. Dorian Gray in Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) is seduced and poisoned by the contents of a yellow book (usually taken as being À rebours by the French novelist Joris Karl Huysmans). The quarterly periodical The Yellow Book, published from 1894 to 1897, with its distinctive illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley became the definitive embodiment of the transgressive spirit of the age. By giving Dracula a yellow cover the publishers were deliberately aligning the novel with this more experimental, and for many rather disreputable, form of literature.
https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/fi...

*Fin de siècle is a French term meaning "end of century", a term which typically encompasses both the meaning of the similar English idiom turn of the century and also makes reference to the closing of one era and onset of another. The term is typically used to refer to the end of the 19th century. This period was widely thought to be a period of social degeneracy, but at the same time a period of hope for a new beginning. The "spirit" of fin de siècle often refers to the cultural hallmarks that were recognized as prominent in the 1880s and 1890s, including ennui, cynicism, pessimism, and "...a widespread belief that civilization leads to decadence. ~wikipedia.

*À rebours Against Nature or Against the Grain ~wikipedia

Both posts very interesting, thanks David.
A changing of the century as well as a time of societal change.
It would seem from the abstract that Dang suggests that Bram Stoker used symbolism of the then current medical thoughts in the workings of Dracula.
Dang, as a Van Helsing in the making, sounds like an interesting person to follow up on.

@10Lily wrote: "....Anyone here have comments on the value/veracity of Dracula in Istanbul: The Unauthorized Version of the Gothic Classic by Ali Rıza Seyfioğlu? It came up on my initial Goodreads page a few weeks ago...."

YouTube version is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7tAW... (Haven't taken the two hours to watch this.)

For those of you who may be interested. Dracula: A Norton Critical Edition (Second Edition) (Norton Critical Editions) Kindle Edition is available here: https://www.amazon.com/Dracula-Norton...

While preparing for this read, the Norton Critical Edition was not quite available for the Kindle, but today I discovered that is is; just in time for Halloween. The annotations are wonderfully excessive.