Dracula the Undead: Author's Note Part 2

Summary: The authors have the balls the size of the Westminster bells to suggest that Bram Stoker guided them while they were writing the novel.

Also, the authors give a techo babble explanation for vampirism.

In case anyone wants to read the original author’s note in order to form their own conclusions, you can read it here.

Writing the novel

Dacre

When Ian first asked me to become involved in this project, I laughed.

“Why didn’t I come up with this sooner?”

I thought to myself, How can I write a book, especially one of this magnitude?

Not very well.

As evidence, here is the number of stars it received on Amazon as of October 18th, 2018:

Clearly, it is destined to become a beloved classic.

Ian reassured me that, even though I had never written a novel before, I could do it.

“He then told me to remember The Little Engine That Could.”

Dacre explains that he and Ian worked together and shared “writing duties completely, each being responsible for half of the workload.”

Our editors would help.

That’s putting it mildly.

In the interview above, Dacre Stoker said that the first draft along with the novel was like a screenplay “until editors helped us in setting us straight because we did need to smooth it out and not have the peaks and valleys that movies do have.”

Translation? The editors told Holt and Stoker how a novel should be correctly formatted and written.

In case anyone might think that a novel and the screenplay are similar to each other…

Let us compare a novel and a screenplay:

[On the left is the screenplay for movie Die Hard and on the right is a chapter from the novel Synthesis: Weave.]

At a glance…

It is obvious that both the novel and screenplay differ in their format and how they are written.

It is important to note that in a 2013 interview, Stoker said this: Obviously, I will admit, it opens some doors being the relative of Bram as well. You don’t have to go through the typical process with publishers and such and you got to use that to your advantage when you can and endure the pitfalls when they inevitably come.

Which explains two things:

1. Why the editors explained things to Stoker and Holt…
2. And if any other writer didn’t properly format and write a novel… The publisher wouldn’t touch it with a fifty-foot barge pole.

Ian also knew of an award-winning historical researcher, Alexander Galant, who could aid in our attempts to be true to the time period of the story.

We get it, Stoker.

Because your friend and co-author knew a historical researcher…

Makes Dracula the Undead a well written and “elevated” novel.

The next hurdle was that we had to craft a good story.

I’ll let this speak for itself:

Ian enthusiastically and seamlessly merged his story ideas with my own.

According to Stoker, they had their differences. And sometimes they would have arguments and either Stoker’s wife or the editor would step in.

He also adds that Holt kind of went in different directions when making creating content and he would pull him in.

This task was much easier than either of us thought—due to the fact that both of us drew our ideas from Bram Stoker himself.

Because Bram Stoker would write psycho lesbian vampires and gore porn.

At times it was as if Bram were in the room with us,

"Why are the lights flickering ‘I’m so fucking disgusted’ in Morse code?”

guiding us through the numerous hints he left behind,

“Like make Quincey Harker a whiny little bitch and turn Van Helsing into a traitorous and crazy old man. And especially have Dracula being a misunderstood vampire who wants tru luv.”

like bread crumbs for us to follow.

Seriously, what’s up the Hansel and Gretel allusion?

Dacre Stoker goes on to say that he along with Holt believe that Bram Stoker planned on writing a sequel. Their “primary evidence” is that Bram’s typewritten manuscript had a different ending.

In that version, the story ends with a volcanic eruption and Dracula’s castle falls into a river of lava.

1. And your point?
2. Oh wait...
3. This is going to be used as evidence to justify writing a sequel.
4. Because they are following in Bram Stoker's footsteps.
5. And it is not because they are doing it to make a shit load of money.

This sequence was cut in the final version for the current, more ambiguous ending.

If Stoker was a writer, he would know that multiple drafts are written for every story.

Because it is like what Hemingway said: "The first draft of everything is shit."

In addition, Dracula’s “death” at the end of Bram’s novel

1. What's up with Dracula's death being in quotation marks?
2. Is Dacre seriously implying that Dracula didn't die?
3. But silly me...
4. He along with Ian wrote an entire book where it is revealed that Dracula was a book of lies written by a bitter and pathetic hack.

does not follow the “rules” that the Van Helsing character shares on how to kill a vampire.

1. Yet in the "official" sequel, anytime the original vampire lore is brought up...
2. It gleefully pisses all over Bram Stoker.
3. After the urination, the readers are then told the "truth"...
4. Which is a hodgepodge of ideas from different vampire stories over the years.
5. So clearly Holt and Stoker care about the original Dracula lore.

Van Helsing states that a stake must be driven through the heart, followed by decapitation. At the end of the novel, Dracula is stabbed through the heart and his throat is slit.

Now that I'm thinking about it...

The whole Dracula not really being dead sounds familiar... Let's see:

In The New Annotated Dracula, Leslie S. Klinger writes in his own words "gentle fiction".

Anyway, this "gentle fiction" revolves around the premise that Dracula is based on a true story.

And in the annotations, Klinger presents his own theories as to what really happened.

He cites various other references and uses parts of the original novel to support his theories.

One of the theories revolves around the idea that Dracula didn't die at the end of the novel.

The reason given? The same two points that Dacre Stoker is making.

So yeah... Score one for originality.

We felt that these were telltale signs that a sequel had been part of Bram’s plan.

Was this epiphany made after wearing tin foil hats?

As a Stoker, I felt Bram needed to be a character in this story, so we could

"Gleefully shit all over him during the entire novel. And we had the gall to dedicate the book to Bram Stoker, thanking him for his inspiration and guidance."

finally give him a share of the limelight.

Any light that was shone on Bram Stoker was prompting the reader to throw rotten tomatoes at him.

Ian had read Bram’s preface to the Icelandic edition of Dracula from 1901, where Bram claimed the events he wrote of “really took place.”

And in the same preface, it says:

All the people who are said to have played a part in this remarkable story − willingly or unwillingly − are widely known and well respected. Both Jonathan Harker and his wife − who is an extraordinary woman − and Dr. Seward are my friends, and have been so for many years, and I have never doubted that they would tell the truth [..]

But in Dracula the Un-dead, Dr. Seward is depicted as a pathetic drug addict and Johnathan Harker is depicted as a bitter drunk who bangs prostitutes.

The portrayals of Dracula the Un-dead and Bram Stoker's own words do not match.

We both seized on my great-granduncle’s whim and saw this as the centerpiece of our story.

And to quote Captain Lone Starr:

We would use the idea that the events of Bram’s book were “fact” as a building block in our own tale.

And said tale was built on a terrible foundation.

The next question you may ask is, Why drag Jack the Ripper into a sequel to Dracula?

Because you are trying to throw anything against the wall and seeing if it will stick?

Again Ian and I drew our inspiration from my great-granduncle.

Did I suddenly enter the Twilight Zone?

Because I clearly remember the disdain and maliciousness permeating from the pages every time that Bram Stoker was mentioned.

To quote another section of Bram’s 1901 Icelandic preface, “[Dracula’s] series of crimes has not yet passed from the memory—a series of crimes which appear to have originated from the same source, and which at the same time created as much repugnance in people everywhere as the murders of Jack the Ripper.” It seems that Bram was hinting that the Ripper’s crimes were of the same nature of Dracula’s.

Let's break this down, shall we?

Here is the passage in its entirety:

This series of crimes has not yet passed from the public’s memory − this series of crimes, which seem incomprehensible but appear to stem from the same root, and have created in their time as much horror within the public as the infamous murders by Jack the Ripper, which occurred a short time later.

In Powers of Darkness: The Lost Version of Dracula, Hans Corneel De Roos states that:

Stoker's preface simply states that the Ripper murders took place after this incomprehensible series of crimes discussed in Makt Myrkranna, that is, Thames Torso Murders.

Later on, De Roos elaborated that:

Instead of "the murders of Jack the Ripper, which came into the story a little later," the preface speaks of "the murders of Jack the Ripper, which happened a little later." This means that "this series of crimes [that] has not yet passed from the memory" is a series of slayings that started before the Ripper Murders, and in their time (not "at the same time"—another error in the Dalby translation) also caused terror with the public, and in the imagination of the London population seemed to be connected with the Whitechapel homicides.

So in other words...

The Thames Torso Murders happened before the Jack the Ripper murders NOT after.

Also, some also believed at the time that the Thames Torso Murders and the Whitechapel homicides were connected.

And yes, Powers of Darkness was published in 2017.

But considering the fact Dacre lied by omission when he said that Bram Stoker died without ever seeing Dracula become popular...

It is hard to tell when Dacre is telling the truth.

As for Dracula being connected to Jack the Ripper?

According to Leslie S. Klinger in The New Annotated Dracula:

he [Bram] does not mean to say that the Ripper murders were committed by Dracula, only that the public outcry was as loud.

This we used

Even though the connection with Jack the Ripper and vampires is hardly groundbreaking.

An anonymous article "A Thirst for Blood" written in the 1888 East London Advertiser declared that:

It is so impossible to account, on any ordinary hypothesis, for these revolting acts of blood that the mind turns as it were instinctively to some theory of occult force, and the myths of the Dark Ages rise before the imagination. Ghouls, vampires, bloodsuckers, and all the ghastly array of fables which have been accumulated throughout the course of centuries take form, and seize hold of the excited fancy. Yet the most morbid imagination can conceive nothing worse than this terrible reality; for what can be more appalling than the thought that there is a being in human shape stealthily moving about a great city, burning with the thirst for human blood, and endowed with such diabolical astuteness, as to enable him to gratify his fiendish lust with absolute impunity?

Of course, that is not also including the fact that:

In Anno Dracula, Jack Seward is Jack the Ripper.

Also, in the comic series Blood of the Innocent, Dracula confronts Jack the Ripper.

In conclusion?

Dracula the Undead is brimming with originality.

as a launching point

Um, "launching point"?

I have heard of a "starting point", "jumping off point" and "jumping off place" but not a "launching point".

It blows my mind that an international best-selling writer doesn't know this.

In conclusion?

and it was amazing how easily all the pieces fell into place.

"Fell into place"? Please!

More like it fell out of a horse's ass.

Once we knew that our villain was going to be Jack the Ripper,

Even though Bram Stoker describes Dracula as a force of evil and death. He even said that Dracula had "a smile that Judas in hell might be proud of."

That DOES NOT sound like Dracula is a misunderstood vampire who is on a mission from God.

Ian and I needed to identify the elusive serial killer.

Even though there are hundreds of possible suspects...

Holt and Stoker identified Jack the Ripper.

Ian had read Bram’s short story Dracula’s Guest, which was published after Bram’s death.

I hate it to burst your bubble..

But plenty of people have "Dracula's Guest". It is not esoteric.

Also, when referencing a short story, you use quotation marks.

Which means "Dracula's Guest" should not be in italics.

It is mind-boggling that Stoker doesn't know this and that the editor didn't correct it.

Many scholars believe this story was part of the original novel, but had been cut by Bram’s publisher.

Citations please!

Some even think Bram intended to use this short story as a basis for a sequel.

At risk of repeating myself...

Citations please!

I'm not asking for a complete list of names but at the very least mention a few.

That way if people want to, they can see for themselves what some of the scholars have said and form their own conclusion.

Don't make people do an internet search.

It is also really dodgy when somebody picks and chooses their citations or doesn't provide any.

The grave marker reads COUNTESS DOLINGEN TO GRAZ IN STYRIA SEARCHED AND FOUND DEAD 1801.

A little bit of me died inside after seeing how said countess was depicted in the "official" prequel.

And yes, I will be dishing out my opinions in a future novel snark.

Also engraved, in Russian, is THE DEAD TRAVEL FAST—a clear marker that in this grave is a vampire.

Well it didn't certainly mean "The dead are slow as a tortoise."

Snarky comment aside, this is a verse from the ballad "Lenore".

The theory exists

"I do believe in theories! I do!"

among some scholars

Stoker, a theory is either proven or disproven.

It doesn't suddenly become imaginary if some people disagree.

that Bram was influenced by the historic Countess Elizabeth Bathory’s “Historic”?

I don't know if Stoker knows this but…

Countess Elizabeth Bathory isn't a fictional character.

bloody deeds

You mean beating people to death with clubs or cutting off body parts with scissors are gory acts? Thanks for letting me know, Dacre Stoker!

Dacre Stoker then states that Bram Stoker based Count Dracula on Elizabeth Bathory.

It is also assumed by some that the countess in Dracula’s Guest somehow represents Bathory herself.

That theory appealed to us and we decided to expand upon it.

“Because a story that revolves around the actions of a hot and psychotic lesbian vampire is simply engaging!"

One of Ian’s sources suggested that Bathory was a distant relative of Dracula.

http://www.angelfire.com/mi4/polcrt/VladTepes.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_I_of_Wallachia (son of Radu I who is Vlad's grandfather)

Dan I was the ruler of Wallachia from 1383 to 1386.[2] He was the son of Radu I of Wallachia[2] and the step-brother of Mircea I of Wallachia.

We decided that this would serve our purpose well, and we have incorporated it. According to stories passed down mainly by Saxon scribes, Prince Dracula was guilty of performing many bloodthirsty acts. The same can be said of Countess Bathory, who was known to bathe in the blood of her victims. We found it interesting that the two most well-known figures in history that people today (rightly or wrongly) associate with vampire legends might have been related. As Bram did in 1897 when he introduced us to his lead villain, a fictional count based loosely on an historic figure, we in 2009 have done the same with with our Countess Bathory.

As we continued to hammer out our plot, Ian suggested that I travel to the Rosenbach Museum in Philadelphia to research the notes Bram used to write Dracula. In the notes I found a character that Bram had planned for, but had deleted early in the process. This was a detective named Cotford. It had always been perplexing to me that Bram, being as thorough as he was, would not have included a police investigation into the strange deaths caused by Dracula. We decided to make Bram’s character of Detective Cotford our own, and use his detective work as a way of leading our readers through the mystery at the heart of our novel.

Writing the Novel: Ian

Dacre and I now focused our attention on Bram’s character of Count Dracula.

Horror fans and Dracula lovers wished that you didn’t.

Here was a major dilemma.

“Should Dracula remain a villain? Or should we turn him into a handsome and misunderstood vampire who wants tru luv?”

When Bram was writing Dracula in the late 1800s, the historic Prince Dracula was a little-known figure in the West, mostly forgotten to history. Bram cobbled together a few facts regarding Prince Dracula and merged them with his own fiction. Was this done by Bram intentionally, to separate his Count Dracula from the historic Prince Dracula?

Or, was it that Bram couldn’t find Prince Dracula’s complete story in his research and simply filled in the gaps using his imagination? For guidance, we returned to Bram’s writings. The Dracula character that Bram created in 1897 was a mysterious, refined, and complex being. He displayed conflicting attributes: At times he appears a nobleman of culture and learning, deeply in tune with his country’s past, yet at other times a wild animal displaying basic survival instincts. He was a man of the fifteenth century trying to relate to the nineteenth-century world around him, at times embracing modernization, and at others times rejecting it.

He displayed a moral compass, which caused struggle as he tried to justify his need to take human life. He killed only when necessary and, to his mind, for the greater good. I immediately sensed that the character, if not the backstory, of Bram’s Count Dracula was very similar to the descriptions of the historical Prince Dracula. Prince Dracula was a man also fighting against changing times, seeking to drive the world back to the dark days of the crusades. Prince Dracula also had a way of always justifying his dark deeds, claiming he did what he did because he had no other choice, or that his victims had chosen their own fate by their actions.

If Bram wanted to make his count synonymous with the historic prince, it would have been impossible at the time he was writing his novel. But we both felt that the similarities between the character of the historical Prince Dracula and Bram’s Count Dracula were not mere coincidence. Since the 1972 release of In Search of Dracula, the line between the historic Prince Dracula and Bram’s Count Dracula has been irreversibly blurred for the public at large. The two forever merged in pop culture in the opening sequence of Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Based on the similarities in Bram’s character and the historical record, and the weight of the public’s awareness of the historical prince, Dacre and I felt we had no choice but to once and for all merge the count with the prince.

We are also confident that if Bram was writing Dracula today, with the wealth of historical information now available on Prince Dracula, his meticulous nature and attention to detail would result in a character that reflected the historic record.

Some may read our novel and astutely point out that our character of Dracula is not, as in Bram’s novel, the absolute villain. In Bram’s novel, Dracula was only described through the view of his enemies, the journals, letters, etc. of the band of heroes. In our sequel we decided that we would give Dracula his say. This allowed us the chance to merge Prince Dracula with Count Dracula and present the Dracula of our sequel as a complex antihero. Others still perceive him as evil, but by allowing him to speak to his own experience he presents a different side.

We therefore do not change Bram’s vision, we just present another view. This also served to keep our story fresh and vital.We have long stated that one of the key reasons for writing this sequel was to remedy the cannibalization and bastardization of Bram’s novel by Hollywood and other authors. This is not to say we dislike the other versions. It is just that from a literary standpoint, none of the films or books fully captured the complete essence of Bram’s novel and characters.

Even in the Tod Browning-Bela Lugosi classic—the only film to have input from the Stoker family—the character of Arthur Holmwood was left out, and Renfield travels to Castle Dracula in the opening of the film instead of Jonathan Harker. The problems truly began when Hollywood wanted to make a sequel to that film based on Dracula’s Guest. The story goes that Florence Stoker would not sell the rights unless she was guaranteed more input in the creative process. It was in the midst of these negotiations that Bram’s copyright was declared void by the U.S. Copyright Office. This left Hollywood free to develop the sequel as they wished.

With Florence demanding more control and Bela Lugosi demanding a large pay increase to reprise the role of Dracula, the decision was made to hire John Balderston to write Dracula’s Daughter, thereby cutting Bela and Florence out of the process completely. The film failed, but the die had been cast. Everyone was now free to write a Dracula novel or make a Dracula film any way they wanted. And oh, they did. Now, here’s the rub.

We know there is a large segment of Dracula fans that have only seen the movies and have never read the book, and of course we wanted to inspire many of those folks to read Bram’s original. Our dearest wish is all Dracula fans—of the book and of the films, will read and enjoy our sequel. To this end there are several areas which we felt that film fans had so embraced and had become so ingrained into Dracula legend that we could not overlook them. To the literary purists we apologize, but we feel this is a necessary concession, made in the hope of once and for all harmonizing all Dracula fans. The concessions are as follows: the romance between Mina and Dracula; the ability of vampires to walk in daylight, fly, and transform themselves; the weapons used to destroy them; and the location and names of certain geographical sites.

As for the Mina-Dracula romance, Dacre and I agreed that this would have to be handled with greater care than in any of the films, and deal with the fact that Bram never clearly wrote that a romance occurred. With this in mind, we went to a passage in one of Mina’s journal entries from Bram’s novel that we felt was conspicuously ambiguous. The passage comes after Mina writes that she believes Dracula has come to her in a dream and reads: “It is strange to me to be kept in the dark as I am to-day, after Jonathan’s full confidence for so many years.” Dacre and I found it strange that Jonathan’s and Van Helsing’s reaction to Mina’s dream is to cut her out of their plans to combat Dracula since heretofore she had been an equal member of the band of heroes. This was before Mina drinks Dracula’s blood from his chest.

To our minds, this was the perfect place to insert the Dracula-Mina romance without recasting Bram’s narrative. As we envisioned it, during this “dream” Dracula comes to Mina to explain his side of the story in the hopes of encouraging the brave band of heroes to back off their pursuit. Mina, not wanting to admit to the others that she had spoken to Dracula because they had made a romantic connection (not physical yet), claimed instead that he had only visited her in a dream. Jonathan and Van Helsing naturally find this suspicious and cut Mina out of their plans. Mina’s reaction to this slight by her husband and Van Helsing then sends her back into Dracula’s arms and to an eventual physical liaison.

By thus weaving the Dracula-Mina romance into the fabric of Bram’s writing, we were able to stay true to Bram and our literary fans while at not alienating our film fans. In Bram’s novel, Count Dracula can walk about in daylight, but is weaker during daylight hours. A vampire being destroyed by the light of the sun was an invention of F. W. Murnau in Nosferatu. Yet, vampires burning to ash in the sun is such a part of modern vampire lore that many reading Bram’s novel for the first time claim that he is “wrong.” This, like many other aspects of vampire lore has also evolved over the past century.

Bram’s vampire lore is no longer cutting edge, and we have tried to address this in our sequel. Therefore, we decided to turn to science and fringe science to, with great care, modernize Bram’s vampires. We did nothing here that Bram had not foreseen and even expected would one day occur. Our proof for this again comes from the 1901 Icelandic preface: “And I am further convinced that [these events] must always remain to some extent incomprehensible, although continuing research in psychology and natural sciences may, in years to come, give logical explanations of such strange happenings which, at present, neither scientists nor the secret police can understand.” In other words, Bram wrote that the strange events that occurred in his novel, at the time he wrote them, are unexplainable.

He goes on to write that he fully expects for science in years to come to provide a logical explanation. Thus, Ian and I have taken the position that vampire’s burn to ash in the sun due to an allergic/chemical reaction to the viral vampire blood that transforms the vampire’s DNA. Of course in 1912, the year in which our sequel takes place, the terms “DNA,” “virus,” or “flu” had not yet been discovered. In their place we used the term “venom.” The vampire virus changes the DNA of a human into a vampire.

Part of that transformation is the ability to control the approximately 70 percent of our brains, which we do not yet use or know much about and thus allows for nonhuman powers. We explained the transformation of vampires into mist and gargoyle, etc. as a telepathic illusion created through mind control. As for the ability of the vampire to “travel fast” by soaring through the air, we turned to the study of telekinesis or levitation—the ability to move objects or one’s self with the mind. With the increased brain power due to the vampire virus, it is easy to understand in our fictional realm how these things could be possible. We have also clarified the weapons that could be used against the vampire.

Again we turned to science, and in some cases merged religion with the science. To explain why in our novel religious icons, such as the cross, work to repel some vampires and not others, we turned to psychology. Those vampires who in life believed in God but have committed evil deeds would naturally have a guilty conscience and fear religious icons as a symbol of their soul’s ultimate damnation. Vampires who did not believe in God in life would have no fear of religious icons. The burning of the skin that occurs when a “guilty conscience” vampire comes in physical contact with a religious icon or is splashed with holy water is due to a supercharged psychosomatic reaction.

When it came to vampires and mirrors, we could not find any justification in science for this phenomenon, so we used our sequel to discredit it. As for garlic, we felt a vampire could be allergic. The same for wolfsbane. As for silver, this has long been relegated in modern pop culture to werewolves, and that is where we left it. The final concession is the location and names of certain geographical sites.

Bram spread his story over many locations from Transylvania to London, Exeter, and Whitby. When Deane and Balderston wrote their play it became unfeasible to have so many set changes. The solution was to set the play in only two main locations: Transylvania and Whitby. This simplification was duplicated by numerous film versions of the story, thus confusing fans for a generation. In Bram’s novel, there was not a Carfax Abbey, which is shocking to the scores of film fans who’ve never read the book.

Bram did write that Dracula bought a house called Carfax, placing it in Purfleet about twenty miles east of London. To add to the confusion, there are the ancient ruins of Whitby Abbey from which Bram drew inspiration while writing parts of the novel in Whitby. Again hoping to resolve conflicts by blending the stories of the films, play, and original novel, we merged Carfax and Whitby Abbey into one location: Carfax Abbey in Whitby. This same idea of compromise was used to finally address the long-standing confusion over the locations of the Westenra summer home and Dr. Seward’s asylum. We placed them both in Whitby, as they are in the play and many of the films.

In our story, we explained why the character Bram made his decision to locate the asylum at Purfleet in his novel this way: At the time Bram didn’t know that the events he was recounting were real. He thought they were the ravings of a madman who had told him a tall tale in a pub. Thus, Bram felt he was free to make whatever changes he wanted for the purposes of his fictionalized account. In our novel, Bram discovers that the story is indeed true, and the liberties that he took with the tale come back to haunt him. Literally.

Dacre

When researching Bram’s notes at the Rosenbach Museum, I found a few more exciting tidbits that we decided to include. First, Bram originally scribbled many different title ideas before settling on the title for his novel to be The Un-Dead. Later, possibly based on the suggestion of his editor shortly before publication, it became just Dracula. This explains the inspiration for our title. In the Rosenbach notes I also found a list of potential character names that Bram compiled but never used for whatever reason.

Ian and I decide to give these names to some of our lesser characters. These names are: Kate Reed, who discovers the impaled body of Jonathan Harker; Dr. Max Windshoeffel, who witnesses the gargoyle flying down the tube tunnel; and Francis Aytown, the photographer who witnesses “the flaming dragon” outside the tube station. In the writing of Dracula the Un-Dead we have included many hidden references to Bram’s Dracula and some of the best Dracula adaptations in the hope that the true Dracula enthusiasts and scholars will discover and enjoy them. Many of the characters who pop up in our sequel are also real historic figures. Look to the name of Quincey’s roommate at the Sorbonne, Braithwaite Lowery.

That name in Bram’s novel was pointed out by Captain Swales on a gravestone in Whitby. Our Braithwaite Lowery mentions he is the son of fishermen, implying he is the grandson of the Braithwaite Lowrey buried in Whitby. The name of Cotford’s partner, Sergeant Lee, is homage to the actor Christopher Lee. There is also Lieutenant Jourdan of Le Surte, our tip-of-the-hat to Louis Jourdan, who played Dracula in the excellent BBC 1978 miniseries that Ian and I believe is the closest adaptation of Bram’s novel. Look for Dr. Langella, a reference to Frank Langella’s excellent, erotically charged Dracula.

Inspector Huntley is based on actor Raymond Huntley, who was the first to play Dracula in Hamilton Deane’s stage production. These are just to name a few. As for historical figures that appear in our sequel, see Henri Salmet, a French aviator who made the first flight from London to Paris in March 1912. Look for Lord Northcote, who in 1880 was elected to the House of Commons as MP for Exeter. Frederick Abberline was lead investigator in the Jack the Ripper murders in 1888.

Ivan Lebedkin was assayer for the czar of Russia 1899-1900. Of course, Hamilton Deane was the writer-producer of the stage production of the play Dracula. John Barrymore was a legendary actor of both stage and screen and is the great-grandfather of actress Drew Barrymore. Tom Reynolds was a well-known British stage actor who, as a member of The Lyceum Theatre Company, portrayed Van Helsing in Hamilton Deane’s production. Able Seaman Coffey was an actual crew member on the Titanic who mysteriously had a premonition of danger while the ship was docked in Queenstown, Ireland.

A. S. Coffey jumped ship, had his fifteen minutes of fame, and disappeared into mists of history. In addition, we have followed Bram’s lead in relying on actual time period train routes and schedules, street names, and locations that in many cases still stand today. The last bit of business Ian and I had before we could begin writing was to decide whether we were going to answer many of the lingering questions left unanswered by Bram in his novel. Due to Bram’s use of journal entries, letters, etc. to tell his story, he was limited in his ability to fully explore his famous characters’ backstories. This left huge plot holes that fans have been arguing over for decades. Ian and I felt it was imperative to at last answer the following enduring questions of how Lucy and Mina first met and forged their lifelong friendship, how a Texan met and became close friends with an English lord’s son and a doctor of middle-class birth, how all three men became friendly rivals in pursuing Lucy’s hand, how Mina and Jonathan first met and fell in love, how the character of Renfield first came under Dracula’s influence, and why Renfield was so important to Dr. Seward and the brave band of heroes.

We hope you agree that these issues are well addressed in Dracula the Un-Dead. In the end it was our most important goal with this sequel to right the wrongs done to Bram’s original classic. We have worked hard on this front. In this way, I, as a Stoker, and Ian, as Dracula’s greatest living fan, hope to apologize for losing the copyright and control of Bram’s magnificent and immortal story for almost a century. Then again, all the terrifying events Ian and wrote of in our novel may, as Bram once suggested, have really taken place.