It’s clear from the novel that Stoker’s Dracula can go out in the daylight - he does so at one point.
The letters/diaries/memoranda style is a clumsy narrative device - it’s hard to remember who the ‘I’ currently is.
Well, it has Dracula fly by plane, but it’s not an adaptation of Stoker’s novel, and has the plane fly it from Carfax to Louisiana(!)
At least compared to how Dracula is later depicted in the novel, when Harkness first arrives at the castle Dracula is, comparatively speaking, starving. The odd infant or two snatched at a moment of opportunity seems to be the best he can do. Perhaps the countryside is indeed quite well warned of vampires. Also when he enters and leaves the castle he has to crawl out in his humanoid form. But by the time he arrives in Whitby (having presumably feasted on the crew) he is able to assume the form of a “black dog”; and later of course the stereotypical bat. As well as looking rejuvenated. His power definitely seems to have grown by then.
I thought Stoker brought Drac to London because he had used up all the local color in his travel guide to Transylvania. It’s been a while for me, but didn’t he pad the wordcount with a recipe for goulash?
When he visits the London zoo; although at the castle he would always disappear before daybreak. W.A.G.: Dracula’s dormant periods are “rest” of some sort. Either being in daylight costs him precious energy, or he can only “recharge” during the daytime. Once he was in England and had far more access to “food”, he didn’t have to be as frugal.
The very first page of the novel has Jonathan Harker fondly recalling his dinner of paprika hendl, or chicken paprikash, known to every citizen of the state of Wisconsin. He even makes a note to “get recipe for Mina.”
CalMeacham @76:. Not to mention Renfield’s (Dwight Frye’s) lovely emergence from the hold in the 1931 movie version. A high point in an otherwise disappointing movie.
I always figured “Vampires can’t cross running water” to mean rivers, streams, brooks, or particularly agitated street puddles. Is the ocean considered “running water?”
It’s been suggested Frankenstein is the first work of Science Fiction.
Cites: Wikipedia entry; In Our Time: Frankenstein,
Dracula II: Ascension used this trope. It was not as useful as the humans hoped it would be.
It all depends where you draw the line between SF and fantasy, and how you define them.
Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan both consider Johannes Kepler’s Somnium (1634) to be the first work of science fiction.
See the History of Science Fiction wiki.
Leonard Wolf and Leslie Klinger both included recipes in their annotations. It is, indeed, a “very thirsty dish.”
Makes sense, but going after Lucy was not a good idea if this was his plan.
London makes sense given other comments that Stoker is writing what he knows (London) and it bringing the horror home to his readers. But yeah, Paris or Berlin would be better as he’s still on the continent. If shit hits the fan he could flee all the way to Siberia on his own if needed.
Does The Spaniards play on this little bit of fame at all? That’s a neat bit of history.
You’ve got to remember that gas-lit Victorian London, which seems almost Gothically quaint to us today, was contemporarily seen as the epitome of a brave new world of science, reason and progress. Steam engines! Dynamos! Electric arc lights! Telegraphs! For some medieval horror like Dracula to appear there was as jarring as if the first colony on Mars were to be afflicted by witchcraft. Van Helsing even makes a speech rationalizing Dracula’s apparent supernatural nature as perhaps something that science just hadn’t caught up with yet.
For a take on Dracula moves to London and isn’t thwarted, there’s Kim Newmans Anno Dracula.
Transylvania was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, which was facing chronic threats from ethnic national independence movements. The Hapsburgs had been on a downhill spiral, arguably since the Thirty Years War, and certainly since the Napoleonic wars. London, on the other hand, was the capital of an empire that ruled a quarter of the globe, and was still growing. As a military conqueror, or as a vampiric predator, London was where the action was.
I think he chose the sea route in order to avoid having his coffins opened by customs inspectors at every border crossing. He knew who to bribe in the Balkan countries, and the convenient storm and shipwreck enabled him to sidestep the British customs agents.
Actually the real story is that Chas Chandler the bassist in the animals saw him in new york and thought he would be a ginchy pop star and paid his whole way. It didn’t work out but he kept at it.
Ziggy Stardust stole his entire schtick from Dracula.
I can’t believe no one’s used the words (although they’ve used the concept): Fresh blood!
I found Stoker’s novel surprisingly more readable than I expected. I’ve read a lot worse 19th c. novels. Anyone read Pamela???
Oops, just googled – Pamela is actually 18th c.