In the Footsteps of Dracula — A Personal Journey and Travel Guide

REVIEW
In the Footsteps of Dracula—A Personal Journey and Travel Guide (paperback)Author: Steven P. Unger
Publisher: World Audience Inc./$20.00
Date of Publication: 2010
Reviewed by James J. Gormley (member, National Book Critics Circle)

Steve Unger, a veteran traveler and writer, has accomplished something truly original with In the Footsteps of Dracula — he has created a personal travelogue for “the Dracula trail.”

Unger’s work is divided into five main parts: Part 1 delves into Bram Stoker’s Dracula; Parts 2 and 3 unearth the historical Prince Vlad Dracula and the path of national heroism and unspeakable cruelty that both defined him; Part 4 visits various Bram Stoker itinerary stops in London and Dublin; and Part 5 provides an indispensible and immensely practical travel how-to for readers who decide to embark on their own footstep-following trip.

Penned to “entertain, to inform, perhaps even to inspire,” noted Unger, “it is a memoir for the armchair traveler.” It is more than that, of course, too, as Unger is able to deftly weave impressive historical, political, cultural and literary research into what is also an original and intimate approach to looking at the Dracula trail as not merely an adventure but also a pilgrimage that each one of us can take to make it our own.

With Unger’s curatorship, for example, we can see what inspired Stoker as he vacationed in Whitby, and we can look down from dizzying mountain heights upon soil that was drenched in the blood of tens of thousands of soldiers, boyars and citizens by Prince Vlad and his armies.

Partly thanks to an entertainingly eclectic selection of pictures taken by Unger (and included in this volume) and partly due to the witty and enjoyable narrative provided to us along the trail, we as readers are also able to bring it all home as we learn about such disparate and colorful details as Gothic Weekends in Whitby and MaxiTaxis in Transylvania, and much more.

While there are many historical and mythological digs, if you will, into Bram Stoker’s Dracula character, Prince Vlad the Impaler and vampirism, my favorites have always included: In Search of Dracula (by McNally and Florescu), The Complete Vampire Companion (by Rosemary Ellen Guiley), The New Annotated Dracula (edited by Leslie Klinger — which is an annotated edition of Stoker’s Dracula, true, but the notes for which are so rich in scholarly annotations as to qualify for a cyclopedia in and of themselves), and the hard-to-get-through yet seminal, Vampires and Vampirism (by Montague Summers). I am now adding Unger’s entry to that list of essential works for students of Bram Stoker, Stoker’s Dracula and of Vlad the Impaler.

While there will always be quibbles among scholars and students of our stake-philic prince (e.g., Was Castle Dracula built onto Castle Arges with stones from the ruined Castle Poienari, or was it Castle Poienari itself?), there should be no quibbling at all regarding Unger’s In the Footsteps of Dracula; it is a fresh, and uniquely personal, addition to our realm of wonder about all things that go bite in the night.

Exclusive Interview with Dacre Stoker: Co-Author of Dracula the Un-Dead

C. 2009 James J. Gormley and Vampire Books Navigator.

VBN: Can you tell the readers of Vampire Books Navigator a bit about how you descend from Bram Stoker and what that was like for you and your family?

Dacre Stoker: Bram was one of seven children. His youngest brother George was my great grandfather, which makes Bram my great grand uncle.

No one in my family ever made a big deal about our famous relative, but of course we were always aware of his achievements, particularly Dracula. As children in Montreal, it seemed to be our friends who made a bigger deal about the family connection, especially around Halloween. I heard more than once, “Is it safe to go to the Stoker house?” but we never lived in anything resembling creepy houses like The Addam’s Family or The Munsters.

Bram’s three great grandsons live in England, I have gotten to know two of them. They feel the same way the Canadian Stokers do; we are aware of our family connections, but we make our own way.

VBN: Can you tell us about you, your background, work/occupation, interests, etc., especially as relate to writing and to your continuing the Dracula legacy?

Dacre Stoker: I taught high school P.E., athletics, health, science and outdoor education for 22 years. More recently, beginning in 2003 I have worked for a Land Conservation organization in Aiken, S.C. and also teach CPR and First Aid. None of my formal education really prepared me for writing this book with Ian. However, I am a very adaptable person, a fairly quick learner, and Ian’s positive, upbeat attitude helped me carry through the steep learning curve. I focused on Ian’s mentoring and also that of our editors, which was invaluable. Of course the writing was still a struggle, but very rewarding.

VBN: Have you been very involved in the Bram Stoker Society; has the dream of a Bram Stoker Museum in Dublin been realized yet?

Dacre Stoker: I have been very involved with the Bram Stoker Society in Dublin. We are currently working together on seeking approval, then raising funds for a proper bust or statue to be a fitting memorial for Bram in Dublin. Hopefully the museum will be next.

VBN: Can you tell us the story behind the writing (co-writing) of Dracula the Un-Dead? Aside from the great Dracula text itself, what inspired you to write Dracula the Un-Dead now?

Dacre Stoker: Ian had the original idea for a screenplay, but he had gotten frustrated with numerous rewrites, and needed some fresh ideas. He convinced me that after 100 plus years a Stoker should be involved in writing a proper sequel to the novel, Dracula. After Ian and I worked together for a few years, I provided my extended family members with a general outline of the story, which included Bram as a character, and asked for their support. With the interest in vampires which was starting to build, even a few years ago, we knew the chance would be soon just right to introduce this generation of readers to Bram Stoker, who is sadly not nearly as well known as his book. I received unanimous family approval! Then, crafting each of our ideas and writing styles into one product was up to Ian and me.

VBN: How did Ian Holt become involved in the project? Can you tell readers a little bit about him?

Dacre Stoker: Ian has been a lifelong Dracula fan. Unlike me, he was educated as a writer, and works as a screenwriter, mostly in the horror genre. He has attended many Dracula events world-wide, has visited all the pertinent Dracula locations in Romania, and is an authority on both the fictitious and factual Dracula history. Having this book published is helping fulfill a lifelong dream for Ian. I think, for him, having an appropriate film project arise from Dracula the Un-Dead will be the ultimate.

VBN: Dracula the Un-Dead, is, I understand, based on Bram Stoker’s own handwritten notes for characters and plot threads that were not included in the original, 1897 edition. Can you shed any light on how these documents were assembled and brought to bear?

Dacre Stoker: One hundred twenty-five pages of Bram’s handwritten notes for Dracula are housed in the Rosenbach Museum in Philadelphia. Since the time when I researched the notes, a friend of mine, Dr. Elizabeth Miller, and her co-author Robert Eighteen-Bisang, have published these notes in an annotated book called Bram Stoker's Notes for Dracula, which is a wonderful resource for both scholars and Dracula fans. The notes include Bram’s list of characters originally intended for Dracula. Some of the characters made it into the final version, some were edited out. In addition to the original characters from Dracula, Ian and I used a few of the discarded characters in our story as well.

Bram’s widow, Florence, sold the notes at Sotheby’s in 1913. After a few more documented sales, the whereabouts of the notes were unknown for a time, until they surfaced again and were acquired by the Rosenbach in 1970. Two visiting professors from Boston University stumbled upon them in the mid-1970s and, since that time, the Rosenbach has been very generous, making the notes available to numerous scholars. When I visited the museum, the staff told me I was the first “real live” Stoker to inspect the notes.

VBN: Your sequel picks up 25 years after the character, Dracula, apparently crumbled into dust. It is written that "Dracula the Un-Dead is deeply researched, rich in character, thrills and scares, and lovingly crafted as both an extension and celebration one of the most classic popular novels in literature.” Other Dracula-inspired books have reached back into Dracula pre-history (such as Jeanne Kalogridis’ Covenant With the Vampire) or into the future (such as Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian). Were these books true to the Dracula legacy? How so? If not, why not?

Dacre Stoker: I have not read Covenant, but I feel Kostova painted a realistic picture in her very well researched book, The Historian.

VBN: Your sequel joins the “fictional” characters in the original with its “real-life” author. Is your sequel the first to do so?

Dacre Stoker: Of course, other authors have used some of Bram’s original characters, some have done a better job than others. I feel what separates Dracula the Un-Dead is that we not only recreated, but extended, these characters in the manner which Bram might have, if Dracula was not written in the journal form. We provide the reader with back stories involving the relationships between the central characters, which we believe are true to Bram’s work.

I don’t think we were the first to include Bram as a character either, but perhaps no one else has him woven in with his characters’ lives in quite the same way.

VBN: Is Dracula the Un-Dead an effort to refocus Dracula literature in a way that is more true to Bram Stoker's creation or purely in tribute to that great work and as a way of rekindling the literary legacy?

Dacre Stoker: It is a mixture of both of these elements. We felt the time was right to give readers of present day vampire stories an opportunity to go back and reconnect with the origin of the genre, but realized that to compete in today’s world, our book needed to be written in a fairly modern style.

VBN: Is there a favorite Dracula or vampire novel you have (aside from Dracula), that you can mention, and an all-time favorite movie version of Dracula? (I understand that Bela Lugosi’s 1931 version was the only one authorized by the Stoker family).

Dacre Stoker: I loved Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot- it made a big impression on me. As it was written, it resembled Bram’s work; set in the present day and very realistic.

I also liked the 1931 Lugosi version of Dracula. Although many  critics  are tough on it, and it definitely takes liberties with Bram’s story, I also really like the 1992 Coppola version. I found Gary Oldman very convincing as both the old and the renewed Count.

VBN: One anthologist, Matthew Beresford, in his From Demons to Dracula, wrote: "Although there have been several adaptations since the novel's release, on both stage and screen, the definitive Dracula [movie], a version that remains true to Stoker's original story, is yet to be made." Is this true? Are you working on a Stoker-family approved movie version of the sequel?

Dacre Stoker: I suppose that is the case with almost every movie adapted from a novel. I believe a well-written novel leaves itself open to different visions. The “mind’s eye” of each reader sees things differently, and I suppose a movie director makes the movie he sees.

Ian and Alexander Galant, our researcher, have written a script to Dracula the Un-Dead. We are in the process of having it looked at by studios and independent filmmakers, and only hope we can retain some control over how a movie is adapted.

VBN: In his introduction to an anthology of Dracula-themed stories, Martin Greenberg wrote: 'What is clear [over] one hundred years later, though, is that in his efforts to adapt a medieval legend as a horror story with resonance for his era, Stoker defined an archetype, a monster that transcended time and place." Do you agree? Would you add anything?

Dacre Stoker: Absolutely, I agree. The mysterious and sinister character that Bram introduced to the world in 1897 is still very relevant today. Most elements and attributes of the character Dracula appear again and again, in a wide variety of vampire stories and movies as they define the leading villains. Dracula never dies.

VBN: Beresford also wrote: "The way ancient traditions, such as the folkloric elements of vampires or the influence of the early demon forms [...] were intertwined with cutting edge technology, such as the use of shorthand, Dr. Seward's phonograph and Van Helsing's blood transfusions, allowed for the creation of what was in essence the vampire's passport into the 20th century and its manifestation once again as a socially relevant being." Do you agree? Would you add anything?

Dacre Stoker: Again I agree with this statement, one of the interesting things to remember is that Bram created Dracula to be able to shape shift and adapt to his surroundings. When we cannot easily identify the enemy, and we realize he could be among us, he is even more terrifying. As Bram’s characters in Dracula rely on “cutting edge” technology to battle Dracula’s supernatural powers, in Dracula the Un-Dead the same characters make use of the technology developed in the subsequent twenty-five years in their attempts to gain the upper hand against the evil.

VBN: Beresford concludes his book thusly: "The modern vampire is a being born of demons, burned as a heretic and reviled as a fiend; the Devil's own creation. What the future may hold for him is uncertain, yet it is undeniable that the image immortalized by Dracula, encapsulating over six thousand years of history, can never be undone." Do you agree? Would you add anything?

Dacre Stoker: I must say Beresford and I seem to be on the same page here. Dracula is both attractive and repulsive. He is incredibly animalistic, yet at times displays human-like emotions. He embodies the ultimate alpha male; no one is able to overcome him, physically or mentally. The character, Dracula, continues to be reborn in the thousands of adaptations world-wide, and although he may appear differently in each of the many films, books and stage plays, we recognize him as being born of Bram’s pages.

VBN: It is suggested that Bram Stoker got some ideas for Dracula while holidaying in Whitby in 1890. True? Would you add anything to that?

Dacre Stoker: It is a well-known that Bram and his family spent quite a few summer holidays in Whitby. In the Whitby library he read the book by William Wilkinson entitled The Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. In this book Wilkinson makes reference to the name Dracula, as he explains the politics, history and culture of this region. Bram researched actual shipwrecks, tidal and wind patterns of the Whitby Harbor, in order to recreate a realistic account of Count Dracula arriving in Whitby aboard the Russian schooner, Demetre. Whitby Abbey, Tait Sands (beach), a graveyard, and the 199 stairs which connect them were all significant settings in Dracula, and describe the Whitby Bram knew.

VBN: Also in 1890 Bram Stoker met a professor from Budapest University, Armeniur Vanbery, who, wrote Matthew Beresford, "discussed at length with Stoker ideas on vampirism and the occult as well as regaling him with tales of his travels in Eastern Europe and particularly Transylvania, and of the history of Romania and Vlad Tepes, the Impaler." Was A. Van Helsing based on A. Vanbery? If so, what other characters were based in “real life”?

Dacre Stoker: You have touched on one of the Beresford’s points that I cannot totally agree with. Although it is totally possible and very likely that Vanbery did discuss ideas on vampirism with Bram, there is nothing in Bram’s research notes mentioning or crediting Vanbery. Bram did a lot of formal research, and has listed many sources in his notes. But, it is very likely that he not list all the people with whom he discussed mythology, and folklore relating to vampirism. As far as Van Helsing’s character being based on Vanberry- it’s possible. Van Helsing could be an amalgamation of Bram himself, Bram’s brother Sir Thornley Stoker, and characters who were edited out of Dracula Bram wrote that some characters were based on people he knew, since he never was specific on that subject, we can enjoy supposing.

VBN: Kids today are arguably more familiar with Twilight and Buffy than Dracula. Will your sequel make Dracula (or Dracula) more relevant and accessible to young people today?

Dacre Stoker: I think our story will be entertaining for the present generation who are into Twilight, and Buffy; after all we did not write a textbook. My hope is that our story will help readers and movie fans, who are into the vampire and horror genre re-connect with Dracula, the novel and the character.

VBN: Do you have other Dracula sequels in the works, that you can say?

Dacre Stoker: We have an outline and a plan, but we’ll see where Dracula the Un-Dead leads us before we can determine when we be to get on with writing it. Ian and Alexander may also be very busy working on the film script.
--VPN.

REVIEW: The New Annotated Dracula

REVIEW
The New Annotated Dracula
(hardcover)
Edited by Leslie S. Klinger
Publisher: W.W. Norton/$26.37 (672 pages)
Date of Publication: 2008
Reviewed by James J. Gormley (member, National Book Critics Circle)

Certainly a book review blog devoted to vampire fiction must begin with Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897). Although the vampire legend, or mythos, can be traced back thousands of years to such dark deities as the befanged Indian goddess, Kali, the blood-drinking Egyptian power, Sekhmet and a legion of blood/soul/life-sucking succubi of various cultures, the tradition from which Stoker drew his inspiration was mainly from southeastern Europe, the 18th century on.

Although Stoker's Dracula was preceded by other vampiric tales --- such as John William Polidori's The Vampyre (1819), James Malcolm Rymer's Varney, the Vampyre (serialized between 1845-1847), Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's "Camilla" (1872), George du Maurier's Trilby (1894) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Sussex Vampire" (1896) --- it is Stoker's tale that truly established and defined the Dracula and vampire genres.

Klinger's definitive annotated edition of Bram Stoker's Dracula employs the "gentle fiction," or conceit, that Stoker's tale is based on real characters and true events. This device welcomes an exhaustively thorough historical and factual examination of the work that will delight Dracula fans and history buffs alike.

Dracula is a remarkable work from all any perspective. Even from a basic English literary perspective, Stoker's story must surely qualify as one of the first genuinely modern works of fiction.

While Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740) is regarded as many as the first English novel, Dracula is extremely modern in its structure, since it is not a conventional narrative at all but is, instead, a collection of first-person, chronologically progressing, diary and journal entries enriched by newspaper clippings. Similar in some structural ways to another landmark English novel, Henry James' Turn of the Screw (serialized in 1898), Dracula offers the jarring, slightly disjointed documentary feel of such modern horror movies as Cloverfield and the Blair Witch Project.

Whether one wishes to believe that Dracula is a true story that has been doctored to protect the identity of certain characters and to make it appear that Dracula is destroyed, or one wishes to simply enjoy the novel for the disturbing gothic nightmare that it is, Klinger's annotated edition surrounds our entree (the story) with a whole banquet hall full of tasty appetizers, tempting side dishes and dark desserts of trivia, facts, observations and insights that provide a panoramic perspective, and context, for every scene and event in the tale.

Klinger is as comfortable drawing references to modern-day interpretations of things vampiric (such as the wildly popular Buffy, the Vampire Slayer) as he is taking us through the fascinating arcana behind Stoker's novel.

Just as Stoker's masterwork is the story against which virtually all vampire fiction is judged --- how faithful to, how different from, and so forth --- Klinger's edition is clearly the definitive text against which all other annotated Dracula editions should be compared.