Powers of Darkness: The First Dracula | 
Now that I‘ve finished the #readingAfrica challenge I‘m picking up this bad boy again. #chunksterchallenge at 824 pages!
I was an unfortunate victim of a nasty headache much of yesterday and sadly didn‘t start all my #scarathlon posts! But I am making up for it today starting with yesterday‘s photo challenge, black (& you see how it picks up fingerprints 😞).
#scarathlondailyprompts #black #teamslaughter @Clwojick @StayCurious
I‘m loving my decision to listen to the original Dracula on audiobook and reading this Swedish version that was only recently discovered and translated into English. It‘s more than twice the length of the original and still early in there are notable differences, like here: Harker‘s meeting and talking to 1 of the witches on occasion. In the Swedish version, Dracula has an old woman who is his house servant but he has none in the original. ⬇️
“To rule, my young gentleman, to rule is the only thing that makes life worth living – whether you rule over the will of men or their hearts!”
Draculitz, in this Swedish version, purportedly is a fascist, hoping to create a super race of vampires to rule the world. This is the first hint of that.
I wish I could read this alongside the “original” Dracula that I‘ve read so many times (but then I‘d never finish!). This version is twice as long and was published as a serial in a Swedish newspaper two years after Dracula was published in 1897, only recently discovered to be a vastly different version of Dracula.
Reading this edition feels like I‘m hanging out with an old friend about whom I‘m learning new things. It‘s a very enjoyable feeling.
“The room was circular like a kind of library; all the walls were completely covered with bookshelves… I immediately made a closer inspection of the books. Some of them were apparently very old, a few even handwritten, and thick covers of leather or leather-clad wood—Their titles and contents were to a large extent completely incomprehensible to me, although some, as far as I could judge, dealt with such subjects as astrology, alchemy, etc.”
I have finished the lengthy introduction and the very interesting translator notes (which bear on who may have written this extended Swedish version of Dracula—I‘m reading the first English translation of it) and Stoker‘s preface. I‘m heading to bed but anxiously awaiting the start of this chunkster version of Dracula (or Draculitz in this version). #chunksterchallenge @Amiable
Sorry I‘m geeking about this book and I may be sharing too much. But I love this:
“Stoker copied a large number of inscriptions from tomb monuments, some of which made their way into the finished novel.“
I may have spent an enormous amount of time transcribing tombstones in my pre-kid years, many times with Mom helping (thanks @Doll8455 !). We did this before ancestry.com became a thing. I‘d post lists on the internet for fellow genealogists.
The translator of this book, who discovered this lengthier Swedish version of Dracula, has a detailed introduction. In this section he makes the case that the lengthier Swedish version was based on Bram Stoker‘s notes. This is one of the examples.
The person he references, Eighteen-Bisang, has a book coming out called “Drafts of Dracula.”
It‘s time for a little 19th century gossip:
“Stoker‘s wife Florence also had a relationship with Oscar Wilde before she abandoned him for Stoker.“
Who knew?
Time for me to spend an evening with Dracula, or rather Draculitz as he is called in this edition
“It turned out that the Swedish adaptation of Dracula was almost twice as long … with a plethora of memorable characters, scenes, and plotlines of which there is no trace in Dracula, and with an entirely new ending. In one stroke it turned out that the Icelandic version was nothing but a severely abridged translation, which also lacked details and scenes from the Swedish original. The Swedish Mörkrets makter was the “real deal.“”
The signature page.
I received a very late birthday present from the husband today 💝 because it just arrived, a limited signed edition 403 of only 500 printed copies of the complete translation of the Swedish edition of Dracula-twice as long as the original-which is one of my all-time favorite books. So, I have decided to abandon my current chunkster for this one at 824 pages! I used to read Dracula every Halloween, so it's time to do it again! #chunksterchallenge
