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This is the third episode of the Draculae miniseries.
Before listening to it, check out the first and second episodes explaining the three versions of Dracula and why we are talking about them.
Many mysteries accompany the revelations that Powers of Darkness, the Icelandic and Swedish versions of Dracula, are not direct translations of Bram Stoker's original, but stories that significantly differ in character names, plot and runtime. Like: did Bram Stoker write it himself, to publish some raunchy content that British censors would forbid? Was Powers of Darkness based on his early drafts? And did he really not copyright Dracula in the USA was that a deliberate ruse? Welllll... brace yourself for ole thrill-destroyer Zaltzman to pop your balloons of excitement.
Searching for the truth among all the rumours and texts are producer Iris Ishichita of the Powers of Darkness podcast, and Will Trimble and Hans Corneel de Roos, who orchestrated English translations of respectively the Swedish and Icelandic Powers of Darknesses.
EXTRA MATERIALS:
A Bram Stoker timeline.
Read the preface to the Icelandic Powers of Darknesses — sorry, I couldn’t find the Swedish one online aside from in the book.
Two copies of Dracula were indeed filed, securing its US copyright.
The ins and outs of Florence Stoker’s lawsuit against Nosferatu.
“Florence and Bram enjoyed a successful marriage and a strong working partnership. During one of their frequent holidays, a Mrs Cruickshank, proprietor of the Kilmarnock Arms, said of them: ‘He was one of the nicest men I ever knew… A big, cheery, handsome Irishman; and his wife was the most beautiful woman I ever set eyes on.’”
“It’s amazing how many elements of modern vampire lore came not from an attempt to write a better vampire tale, but rather were a failed attempt at avoiding a copyright infringement lawsuit. Without those changes, vampires might never have been thought to be vulnerable to sunlight or able to kill their victims. Vampire lore would have been very different without Nosferatu. However, the biggest change might be that there would have been almost no vampire movies at all.”
“The lawsuit surrounding the copyright of Dracula and the release of the film Nosferatu (1922) led to more focus falling upon the original novel. It was from that point that Count Dracula, as a character, slowly became a phenomenon.”
I wonder why Dracula is THE big early vampire novel and its predecessor Carmilla is not.
“When Stoker died in 1912 the obituaries hardly mentioned Dracula, and merely listed it as one of his many novels, concentrating instead on his long management of Henry Irving, one of the greatest actors on the late-Victorian stage. Irving is now all but forgotten except by theatrical historians, but Count Dracula has eclipsed even his author, and Stoker himself is remembered for little else.”
Edward Gorey designed sets and costumes for the Broadway revival of the Dracula play — and there’s a charming-looking toy theatre book of them!
The 1898 Hungarian translation of Dracula.
“Dracula felt fun for the first 150 pages and I appreciated the vampire’s general campness. But I struggled with the glaring absurdity of the epistolary format. Every journal entry was written in the exact style of a rambling Victorian novel. And Van Helsing did my head in, with all that moralising, all that dithering. I was not rooting for Count Dracula, not exactly, but I’d have liked to see sweetcorn lodged in Van Helsing’s teeth.”
Support the show at theallusionist.org/donate and as well as keeping this independent podcast going, you also get behind-the-scenes glimpses about every episode, fortnightly livestreams with me and my dictionaries, and the Allusioverse Discord community.
YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
jeremiad, noun: a long, mournful complaint or lamentation; a list of woes.
Origin 18th century: from French ‘jérémiade’,
with reference to the Lamentations of Jeremiah in the Old Testament.
CREDITS:
Iris Ichishita is a documentary-maker, and the producer, writer and host of the Powers of Darkness podcast, a very comprehensive examination of these books. She is also the cohost of Oh Whatever Movies podcast.
Will Trimble orchestrated one of the English translations of Mörkrets Makter, the Swedish Powers of Darkness.
And Hans Corneel de Roos made the English translation of Makt Myrkranna, the Icelandic Powers of Darkness. Find more of his work at powersofdarkness.com.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, on the unceded ancestral and traditional territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
The original Allusionist music is by Martin Austwick. Download his songs at palebirdmusic.com and listen to his podcasts Song By Song and Neutrino Watch.
Find the Allusionist at youtube.com/allusionistshow, instagram.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow, @allusionistshow.bsky.social… Essentially: if I’m there, I’m there as @allusionistshow.
Back in two weeks with one more Draculae episode - HZ.
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