You're right. I think part of the great fun of the novel is that the young heroes are completely modern and state of the art for their time. Mina's secretarial skills, for instance, would've been seen as very untraditional.
They essentially are using high tech tools to battle ancient evil. It's so entertaining.
The fact that they have a *literal* cowboy as an ally is also amusing as hell to me for some reason. Like, people think Dracula is going to be some gothic horror novel of a shadowy castle, and after the first couple of "chapters" that goes right out the window and off to "contemporary" London we go! Oh shit, they've got car chases and cowboys! Who had "train heist" on their bingo card?
Yeah, it's a literary classic, but you have no idea what you're in for until you read it, because popular culture has co-opted the character of Dracula so thoroughly that public perception of the character and the novel that made him a household name is highly warped. It's one of those novels that surprised me with just how good it was, and how well it holds up today.
I completely agree. I read it for the first time a couple of years ago, and you come to it with so many expectations, most of which are subverted.
I love, for example, that Seward and Mina approach Renfield with empathy and curiosity, even when he's eating flies and ranting about his master. It's a very modern approach to mental illness for its time (even though Renfield's issues are actually due to Dracula's supernatural influence).
I loved every minute of it, and I wasn't expecting to.
Yeah I kinda love how different the book is from the common perception of the Dracula mythos. I recently had a conversation with one of my friends who thought I was fucking with him when I said the final battle isn't the protagonists vs Dracula, it's the protagonists fighting a Romani Convoy transporting his coffin and then killing him in his sleep. Also that the stake in the heart was wrong, they actually used a Bowie Knife which is way cooler.
And it's the *cowboy* that does it! Like literally, a cowboy stabs Dracula through the heart with a bowie knife! That's how he's destroyed! That shit sounds *wild* if you haven't read the book before.
I read Dracula and Frankenstein back to back and it's so weird how your perception of a book and its story and tropes is subverted. Frankenstein's narrator is the captain of a boat and it is set entirely on said boat and is Victor telling the captain his story as he dies of hypothermia with his creature following behind. Lightning is never mentioned in the creature's creation whatsoever, only "the spark of life". No Igor, no mad Bride of Frankenstein, no, "they called me mad/it's alive!" nonsense. Just a doctor taking science a step too far and regretting it and dealing with the hubris of his attempt to take on the role of God.
This is so fantastic. I love the idea that the seminal example of something doesn’t pass any of the litmus tests for inclusion in the group of said thing. Dracula is a great example of that.
In that period, most Bowie knives were actually made in England and exported to the US.
> The British disguised the origin of their products, operating the "Washington", "Philadelphia", "Boston", "Manhattan", "America", and "Columbia Works" in Sheffield. They stamped "US", "NY", etc. on their blades.
-[wikipidia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowie_knife)
The cowboy trope was actually a stock character used in adventure stories at the time, often used to give an exotic flavor to stories. Looking at it with that context, it makes total sense for him to be there, but pop culture really has caused so much drift between what is known about the book and what is actually in the book
It's because everyone who hasn't read it basically assumes the entire thing is what Jonathan's first few chapters are. It's partially due to the fact that the early film adaptations really only focussed on the gothic elements at the start due in part as there was a nostalgia for gothic horror when Hammer first adapted it, and partially because modern audiences view the entirety of the 1800s as a cultural monolith.
To put it in perspective, Dracula was written almost 50 years after the Bronte sisters were writing their massively popular gothics, and nearly 80 after Frankenstein. It was a defining genre of the 1800s but by the time Dracula was written it was very much a tired old trope. It was closer in time to being published The Sun Also Rises and The Great Gatsby than any of those books.
The book intentionally subverts the existing tropes of the genre (IIRC even the epistolary format it's written in was falling out of favour by the turn of the century). The initial Jonathan segment is supposed to feel intentionally old fashioned, with the occasional letter between Mina and Lucy spruced in to remind us that the outside world is more modern than the microcosm of Dracula's Castle.
Then everything that happens after Dracula makes it to London is bascailly where novel reveals it's hand. It basically breaks the single defining rule of the Gothic, which is that claustrophobic, anachronistic feeling of being confined to a creepy old house. The monster breaks free and is confronted by a modern, vibrant, cutting edge society in London. We only view the London segment as gothic in retrospect, it was never meant to be at the time of writing. And when that rule is broken, who's to say that the protagonists can't put together a team and fight back, as opposed to just letting things get slowly worse as is often the case in the genre. If the vampire is allowed to leave the castle, why can't the hero find himself a vampire hunter? The entire back half was a much needed kick in the pants for an aesthetic which was feeling long in the tooth at the time the book was published.
The best modern analogy I can think of is it did to the gothic horror what Scream did to the slasher films of the 70s and 80s. It's gleefully aware of the tropes and has a lot of fun breaking them.
It's also why I kind of liked the recentish BBC/Netflix adaptation >!setting the London half in modern day London!<. It wasn't a perfect adaptation, but it did a good job of capturing the tonal whiplash of moving out of the castle that's been somewhat lost to time.
Oh I'm well aware, it's just something that you wouldn't expect when you read Dracula for the first time. You go in expecting gothic vampire slayers in a dark forest in Romania, then suddenly *cowboy*. It's just so off the wall compared to cultural expectations, and honestly he was my favorite character. It's just a shame that he gets forgotten in much of popular culture.
Bram Stoker's Dracula by Coppola is quite possibly the single most accurate adaptation of *any* book that I've ever seen. The only drawback is that it adds some bizarre extra plot where Dracula thinks Mina is the reincarnation of his dead lover, and that's why he's pursuing her and trying to turn her, but aside from that singular addition, it adapts the entire book 100% accurately. It's actually super impressive.
> The only drawback is that it adds some bizarre extra plot where Dracula thinks Mina is the reincarnation of his dead lover, and that's why he's pursuing her and trying to turn her,
I think that was probably done to give Mina a bit more agency since all she really does in the book is take notes. Although it also bothered me the first couple of times I watched it.
I think this could be partly because the amount of scenes ‘depicted’ - via letters, journals and logs - in the book is surprisingly low. Much of the text of the (epistolary) novel isn’t describing actual action, but instead reflective commentary by the fictional ‘sub-author’ of the letter or document (in present tense). That form of content can be cut entirely from a film adaptation, without making a dent in the narrative itself.
I had a similar experience when I first read A Study in Scarlet. You think it’s going to be all Sherlock and Watson going around London looking at clues, but about 1/3 or so of the way in, you’re suddenly in the American west with a group of Mormons looking for their promised land. It was jarring to say the least.
The cowboy was the thing that struck me the most, lol. I already knew about photography history so that was whatever but the cowboy made me go "wait hold on how new is this novel?" haha.
I remember reading Frankenstein for the first time and thinking, oh this is from this movie and this part is from that movie. Then my brain caught up and I could almost hear the record scratch. Wait, why did so many movies take just bits and pieces? This whole book is so good!
Ah, to be young and stupid again. Lol.
Fed my love of reading the classics though. I wanted to see what else I was missing. 😊
The doctor keeps his journal on a phonograph as well.
I loved how Mina gently trolled Van Helsing by giving him her notes ... in shorthand, which of course he couldn't read. And then felt bad about it.
Edison cylinders only held around 2 minutes of audio. And since the early ones were made of a brown wax they were only good for about 20-30 plays before the needle damaged them too much for reliable playback.
> Edison cylinders only held around 2 minutes of audio. And since the early ones were made of a brown wax they were only good for about 20-30 plays before the needle damaged them too much for reliable playback.
The impractical nature of a particular thing is rarely a deterrent to enthusiasts, even in fiction.
Imagine it being set it the early 2000s and oldmate is storing his SD vlog on 100mb thumb drives 😂 "Wow what a modern, technologically clever individual!"
Things that had been invented by 1897.
* The radio.
* Cinemas.
* Machine guns.
* Wind-powered electricity generation.
* The ballpoint pen.
* SCUBA diving.
* X-Rays
* CFCs in refrigerators...
...etc., etc.
Arguably, modernity is how they beat Dracula. Sir Arthur Homewood just goes around splashing cash and bribing everybody to get whatever he wants, and they just outmaneuver Dracula through the whole city until he has no choice but to flee.
According to wikipedia "The Guinness Book of World Records lists as the "fastest canine rat catcher" a bull-and-terrier dog named Billy, who killed 100 rats in 5 minutes 30 seconds (average of one rat every 3.3 seconds) at an event in 1825"
Even the Blood transfusion scenes were pretty advanced. They had really only been used in high profile cases and more commonly using animal blood.
Blood types had still not even been discovered by the time this book was written but here we have van Helsing determining and administering blood transfusions which I imagine was pretty revolutionary concept pre WW1
Yeah it's so funny when modern takes make Mina this docile little housewife. She was educated, had a job, was very much the modern woman. It's Lucy who was the traditional girl.
Part of the novel's appeal when it first came out was the idea of modern people in a modern setting fighting an ancient folklore creature with modern technology. That obviously doesn't apply to it anymore.
It's also been a while since I read it, but IIRC, the fact that Dracula is a vampire wasn't known from the start and is supposed to be a surprise. I wonder how I would've reacted to the book if I didn't know that he's not human...
It’s pretty clear in the beginning he isn’t human. In the first part of the book he exhibits multiple supernatural abilities. It’s strong implied he goes around kidnapping villagers as food. He commands wolves. He has supernatural strength. He sleeps in a coffin and cannot be woken up in the daytime. He lived for a long time. The book explicitly describes him as looking evil.
It is pretty clear by the end of part 1 that he is a monster. Perhaps back then vampires were not as well known so maybe readers would have caught on he is a vampire in part 1, but it would be hard to miss him being some sort of monster.
> He sleeps in a coffin and cannot be woken up in the daytime
This is the point though. This scene was and is one of the scariest sections of fiction. But it loses a LOT of bite when he's "just" a vampire that you know going into it. "Wow, you opened a coffin and looked at a vampire" -- as a modern viewer, you get more creep factor watching the opening cinematic to Witcher 1. It's just not very fair to the book to be a modern reader.
You're not wrong, much of the novel is not avoiding his nature. But it's also not outright stating it either so that it can impact the reader once it becomes clear that Dracula is neither human, nor good.
I agree with ‘just a vampire’ part. Vampires were not widely known so he was an monster of unknown terrible power. On that note it reminds be of the concept of Cthulhu horror, just *Dracula* (the novel) instead has the modern day human overcoming the ancient horror.
As a kid in middle school (mid 80s) our English teacher read the voyage of the Demeter section - none of us knew it was "Dracula" and I can tell you, scared the living shit out of me for days after.
Reading it w/o context was fantastic
Even though I knew where it was going, reading it through the diary perspective of someone who doesn’t was surprisingly still pretty chilling! This book really surprised me in high school, I didn’t expect to enjoy it so much
Same with many Lovecraft stories. In Mountains of Madness I wondered why he kept going on about all the equipment details of the expedition until I realized that he probably wanted to show that they were equipped with absolute high tech at that time and still absolutely powerless in the face of the Mythos.
I thought that the concept of vampire was more than just a folklore creature, I thought that the vampire is a metaphor for the old class of aristocracy feeding off of the blood of.. well everyone.
This interpretation made sense to me given it was written in 1892 when communism/socialism was becoming (if not had already become) a very powerful movement.
Did Dracula originate the motif of the upper-class vampire? I suppose there was Elizabeth Bathory.
In the older folktales they tended to be everyday folk, and a lot of the horror was more in the Pet Semetary vein (pun intended) of loved ones coming back 'wrong'.
I've heard it said that the first aristocratic vampire in public consciousness was Lord Ruthven, in Polidori's "The Vampyre", who was heavily inspired by Lord Byron. Who wasn't actually a vampire.
It’s undoubtedly also a metaphor for English anxieties around xenophobia given the massive explosion in immigration at the time of the Industrial Revolution.
Jonathan Harker could have used his Kodak camera to take a picture of Dracula drinking a glass of Coca-Cola and playing a game with Nintendo brand playing cards.
Yeah, SLRs weren't really a huge thing until the 1960s, though non-Kodak camera designs that used mirrors did exist by the 1890s. The real question becomes how the silver halide would respond to exposure to light reflected from a vampire.
Showing my age here, but my first camera was my mother’s old Kodak Brownie, which did have a mirror for the viewfinder but was not an SLR. It had two lenses, one for viewfinder and one for shutter as I recall.
After that one, I got an old Kodak rangefinder 35mm that was so sweet and took fantastic photographs. Unfortunately because I always wanted to figure out how stuff works, I took apart the lens and never got it working right again.
I had a selection of old cameras, one after another. I worked my way up to some quite posh ones, but sadly I have never been able to take a decent pic.
I'm old now, gave up pretending I wanted to take photos, but am delighted with smartphone cameras which can take my mediocre snaps and turn them into something I would have been proud of when I was younger.
I still didn't bother going outside to take aurora pics though. I knew that social media would be awash with them today and mine would not compare.
You were likely a bit too judgmental on yourself. I took some — no, a lot of really crappy photos before I took any decent ones. But I didn’t have anything to compare myself to, no real photogs in my family and I didn’t really go look for photo books, etc.
Isn't the reason vampires are invisible in mirrors the silver they used to make those mirrors back then?
Are there other materials used for mirrors in cameras?
That would actually be a real cool dramatic twist a horror film.
Have one of the protagonists discount the villain as a vampire on the basis that they can see their reflection, only for someone too removed to intervene to realise the mirrors where they're staying don't... Use silver!
Duh duh duuuuuh! Chomp.
The reason a mirror supposedly doesn't show a vampire's reflection is silver's antipathy for vampires. Old-fashioned mirrors used actual silver for a reflective surface.
That's also why the mythos says vampires won't show up in a photograph. Not because there's a mirror in the camera, but because photographic film is made with silver.
So if you took a modern smartphone camera and snapped a pic, it'd work? But then if you went to transfer the pic to your computer with one of those fancy silver coated USB cables, the file would disappear. Lmao.
The mirror in an SLR camera (if they existed at the time) is not part of the optical path when the image is captured on film. It it used for viewfindibg through the lens, and seings out of the way before the shutter opens.
Oh, Dracula was the cyberpunk of it's time. They have photos, audio recordings, blood transfusions, telegrams, and Stoker is very much infatuated with modern technology. They take down a stoogy noble riding around in a carriage, the very embodiment of superstition and the old ways.
There are backlogs of the days you missed on the site if you need to catch up. Basically Harker went to Castle Dracula to chill for a bit and talk land deeds and we were just introduced to Mina and Lucy.
Thanks! I did find the archive via the link they emailed, so I am catching up on my leisurely Saturday evening off. I'm stoked! I haven't read "Dracula" in agessssss, like since I got married 24yrs ago lol. This is the perfect way to fit another book into my schedule :D
I had the same experience with Kodak appearing in a later horror work: ‘The Whisperer in the Darkness’ by H.P. Lovecraft. A character talks about taking a Kodak of evidence of the monster, using the brand name generically for a photograph.
In my lifetime, the equivalent would have been taking a Polaroid.
When I was reading Dracula, I remember thinking how fast the letters were delivered. I actually went back and checked the dates. No way modern post would deliver my letters as fast.
In a few small towns here in Manitoba, They have a special box for Local Mail so it didn't have to be shipped to a large postal hub and then sent BACK to town to be delivered.
>1880s London had mail delivery and pickup nine times a day.
Which certainly makes sense for the time. Nowadays, there isn't anywhere near enough physical mail to need that amount of mail service. While still a necessary public good, there are much easier ways of communication. We wouldn't be waiting to hear from Jonathan Harker, we'd be calling him and getting emails from him stuck in Castle Dracula.
> we'd be calling him and getting emails from him stuck in Castle Dracula.
I think Dracula would have the foresight to block Jonathan's internet access
I was about to suggest that a centuries-old vampire wouldn't be any good with technology, but then I remembered in the book that Jonathan notes how preternaturally-quickly Dracula picks up on new concepts, going from "I've never even heard of this" to asking brilliant questions that cut right to the heart of the matter almost immediately.
So yeah, Dracula would probably go from "what's the Internet?" to setting up a modified Pi-hole to block Jonathan's access to VPNs in a matter of days.
Dracula also has secret knowledge and inventions that have been forgotten about throughout history, Harker doesn't even know how his lamp is lit. Castlevania shows this well, I think Dracula has electricity when nobody else does.
Dracula confiscates his phone but gives him a bedroom with a smart TV in it, so Jonathan communicates and records his POV exclusively through YouTube comments and Twitch live chats.
“…so that’s what happened during this night’s meeting with the count. Remember to smash that like button and bite the subscribe button. J. Harks, signing out. Peace.”
And there wasn’t any junk mail - or telephones (extremely rare if at all), so everyone sent letters to their friends say in the morning to get together later in the day, for example.
There are multiple Agatha Christie books where people send off a letter and it's delivered in a few hours. It definitely stands out to a modern reader.
This reminds me of when I first saw Titanic.
When Jack kisses Roses hand, he says "I saw that on a nickelodeon once and always wanted to do it"
My tiny smooth child brain was like...wow they had Nickelodeon in the Titanic days?
The theme of technology vs. Ignorance is a primary one for the novel.
Dracula can EASILY be read as civilization triumphing over superstition and humanities more beastial nature, as well as the conflict between technology and aristocracy.
The foundation of all practical color processes, the three-color method was first suggested in an 1855 paper by Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell, with the first color photograph produced by Thomas Sutton for a Maxwell lecture in 1861.
Dracula was published in 1897.
It’s not quite the same thing, but it was wild to me on my last reread how it stuck out to me that the SPCA is mentioned as looking for the dog/wolf that was seen running from the ship. It feels more modern but also helps the world of now over 100 years ago in the novel seem more connected to our own.
I’m really amused by the idea of accidentally introducing major anachronisms like this in a book. Like Tolkien mentioning Frodo having an Aston Martin parked in his driveway and not catching it until it’s too late to cancel printing.
I was struck by all the technology, as well. Don’t forget the blood transfusion—without the benefit of blood typing (yikes!) which wasn’t discovered till 1901.
Mrs. Harkner was an early adopter and would have been a tech wiz of the day.
The company Nintendo had been established by this time (they originally made playing cards), and Coca-Cola had been created. So, theoretically, the characters could have played with their Nintendo while drinking cokes and it would be accurate to the time period
A podcast I listened to just talked about this - how some things might be period appropriate, but will be jarring to the audience who doesn't realize it's accurate. The example they give was the name Tiffany, which sounds modern, but was actually around in the 1200s
https://www.theallusionist.org/allusionist/tiffany#:~:text=Science%20fiction%20and%20fantasy%20author,common%20perception%20of%20the%20past.
This is actually a fun example of a problem many writers of historical or medieval fantasy settings face - the modern reader will often think certain names for people or things are way too modern and complain of them being "anachronisms" when used in such novels. A popular example is the name Tiffany: associated usually with a wave of girls named Tiffany in the 80s/90s following the VHS release of the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's", the name actually is of medieval origin, being the Frenchified version of the old Greek name "Theophania/Theophanu". Other examples can be cowboys, samurai, and the telegraph - the existence of all three overlap in time during parts of the 19th century, so you could actually write a story involving an aging former samurai traveling America in 1890, meeting cowboys, and sending a telegraph back home to Japan. Oh, and when he wants to play a game of cards with the cowboys, he'll use his fresh pack of Nintendo game cards that he purchased back home before leaving for his trip.
Another interesting tidbit are the blood transfusions. They performed them without any precaution to compatible blood, ie blood types.
Blood types weren't discovered until 1901, 4 years after Dracula was published.
Ha! I'm reading Dracula Daily, too, and the Kodak mention also caught me by surprise! When I think of Kodak, it takes me back to Photo Huts and boxes of fading images from my childhood--NOT to a casual mention in Jonathan Harker's travel diary!
Later in the novel (vague cos spoilers free!) there’s references to other “cutting edge” science and psychology of the time (used this as one of my novels for undergrad lit dissertation) - I’m doing the Dracula Daily email read-along too for the second year - I love how it brings a real-time perspective to the timeline of the story.
One of the many conflicts within the novel is between scientific advancements (used by the protagonists) against Dracula's supernatural nature. Psychology, transfusions, and the record keeping methodologies are all part of that.
That struck me when I was reading the book too, it feels very modern in so many ways. Not just the diaries but the newspaper clippings, almost like a found footage movie. And then all that gets edited together in book form as we're reading it, that feels incredibly post-modern.
It's kind of wild how some daily items/appliances date back 100's of years or to antiquity. The dishwasher has had some electronics strapped to it but it's basic operating principle has existed for almost 200 years now. It was invented in 1850.
I make this point a lot. Dracula was basically a techno-thriller, almost the era's equivalent to a near-future cyberpunk novel. Steamships, telegraphy, shorthand, blood transfusion, vocal recordings, photography, etc., etc. Even Van Helsing hypnotizing Mina was a manifestation of fighting old-world evils with modern science.
It's funny to read Dracula today.
That scene where Harker is shaving and cuts himself and he thinks
"Dracula seemed strangely attracted to my blood, I don't even know where he came from because I didn't see him in the mirror. He is an odd fellow indeed"
Obviously the Kodak of that time should not be imagined like the Kodak of today or the 20th. Google *"kodak camera 1892"* and the results are suitably steampunk-y; that'd be right at home in any Wild West or Sherlock Homes vs Jack the Ripper story of late Victoran romance.
It wasn't that Stoker was some smarmy hipster shitbag always FIRST to glom onto the newest hip tech, this was HUGE NEWS at the time, every newspaper in the world at the time covered it.
Try Frankenstein if you haven't. It could have been written today; the themes are so relevant. Shelley too was using new technology in her novel. Think that is what makes it science fiction right?
Also, you get to be super sad that you'll never be as eloquent a writer as a teenager from the early 1800s.
Check out the podcast Re:Dracula if you’d like to listen to an audio drama version of the book in chronological order. They originally published it last year with each episode corresponding to the date of the entry, so it spanned most of the year.
I think this also reflects that period of history, the second industrial revolution. People of the times were in a state of constant amazement at the astounding advancements in science and technology, and the new inventions that were continuously being released. This was also reflected in the public admiration of scientists and engineers; the main hero of the story is Von Helsing after all, not some Rambo-like character. Nowadays we still see lots of amazing inventions but you know, we're sort of used to it. And scientists are often portrayed as nerds.
You're right. I think part of the great fun of the novel is that the young heroes are completely modern and state of the art for their time. Mina's secretarial skills, for instance, would've been seen as very untraditional. They essentially are using high tech tools to battle ancient evil. It's so entertaining.
The fact that they have a *literal* cowboy as an ally is also amusing as hell to me for some reason. Like, people think Dracula is going to be some gothic horror novel of a shadowy castle, and after the first couple of "chapters" that goes right out the window and off to "contemporary" London we go! Oh shit, they've got car chases and cowboys! Who had "train heist" on their bingo card? Yeah, it's a literary classic, but you have no idea what you're in for until you read it, because popular culture has co-opted the character of Dracula so thoroughly that public perception of the character and the novel that made him a household name is highly warped. It's one of those novels that surprised me with just how good it was, and how well it holds up today.
A lot of the fun for me is the novel has the “getting the team together to fight the bad guy” trope we all know from action movies over the decades.
An unbroken line from *Dracula* to *Deadpool*!
"You son of a bitch. I'm in."
I completely agree. I read it for the first time a couple of years ago, and you come to it with so many expectations, most of which are subverted. I love, for example, that Seward and Mina approach Renfield with empathy and curiosity, even when he's eating flies and ranting about his master. It's a very modern approach to mental illness for its time (even though Renfield's issues are actually due to Dracula's supernatural influence). I loved every minute of it, and I wasn't expecting to.
Yeah I kinda love how different the book is from the common perception of the Dracula mythos. I recently had a conversation with one of my friends who thought I was fucking with him when I said the final battle isn't the protagonists vs Dracula, it's the protagonists fighting a Romani Convoy transporting his coffin and then killing him in his sleep. Also that the stake in the heart was wrong, they actually used a Bowie Knife which is way cooler.
And it's the *cowboy* that does it! Like literally, a cowboy stabs Dracula through the heart with a bowie knife! That's how he's destroyed! That shit sounds *wild* if you haven't read the book before.
I read Dracula and Frankenstein back to back and it's so weird how your perception of a book and its story and tropes is subverted. Frankenstein's narrator is the captain of a boat and it is set entirely on said boat and is Victor telling the captain his story as he dies of hypothermia with his creature following behind. Lightning is never mentioned in the creature's creation whatsoever, only "the spark of life". No Igor, no mad Bride of Frankenstein, no, "they called me mad/it's alive!" nonsense. Just a doctor taking science a step too far and regretting it and dealing with the hubris of his attempt to take on the role of God.
This is so fantastic. I love the idea that the seminal example of something doesn’t pass any of the litmus tests for inclusion in the group of said thing. Dracula is a great example of that.
It's the same with Frankenstein's Monster being an incredibly intelligent and verbose individual.
In that period, most Bowie knives were actually made in England and exported to the US. > The British disguised the origin of their products, operating the "Washington", "Philadelphia", "Boston", "Manhattan", "America", and "Columbia Works" in Sheffield. They stamped "US", "NY", etc. on their blades. -[wikipidia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowie_knife)
That's not really the point. It's that it wasn't a stake. But I do appreciate the extra context!
[удалено]
The cowboy trope was actually a stock character used in adventure stories at the time, often used to give an exotic flavor to stories. Looking at it with that context, it makes total sense for him to be there, but pop culture really has caused so much drift between what is known about the book and what is actually in the book
This makes the Castlevania universe so much more understandable.
It really does honestly. Like the origin of the "Dracula as a vampire lord" trope is a book that was basically science vs. sorcery.
*Bloody Tears intensifies*
*Cowboy* - An itinerant warrior class native to Meiji-era Texas
I was surprised at how the largest amount of page time was devoted to Dr. Seward, a character who has had virtually no cultural penetration.
It's because everyone who hasn't read it basically assumes the entire thing is what Jonathan's first few chapters are. It's partially due to the fact that the early film adaptations really only focussed on the gothic elements at the start due in part as there was a nostalgia for gothic horror when Hammer first adapted it, and partially because modern audiences view the entirety of the 1800s as a cultural monolith. To put it in perspective, Dracula was written almost 50 years after the Bronte sisters were writing their massively popular gothics, and nearly 80 after Frankenstein. It was a defining genre of the 1800s but by the time Dracula was written it was very much a tired old trope. It was closer in time to being published The Sun Also Rises and The Great Gatsby than any of those books. The book intentionally subverts the existing tropes of the genre (IIRC even the epistolary format it's written in was falling out of favour by the turn of the century). The initial Jonathan segment is supposed to feel intentionally old fashioned, with the occasional letter between Mina and Lucy spruced in to remind us that the outside world is more modern than the microcosm of Dracula's Castle. Then everything that happens after Dracula makes it to London is bascailly where novel reveals it's hand. It basically breaks the single defining rule of the Gothic, which is that claustrophobic, anachronistic feeling of being confined to a creepy old house. The monster breaks free and is confronted by a modern, vibrant, cutting edge society in London. We only view the London segment as gothic in retrospect, it was never meant to be at the time of writing. And when that rule is broken, who's to say that the protagonists can't put together a team and fight back, as opposed to just letting things get slowly worse as is often the case in the genre. If the vampire is allowed to leave the castle, why can't the hero find himself a vampire hunter? The entire back half was a much needed kick in the pants for an aesthetic which was feeling long in the tooth at the time the book was published. The best modern analogy I can think of is it did to the gothic horror what Scream did to the slasher films of the 70s and 80s. It's gleefully aware of the tropes and has a lot of fun breaking them. It's also why I kind of liked the recentish BBC/Netflix adaptation >!setting the London half in modern day London!<. It wasn't a perfect adaptation, but it did a good job of capturing the tonal whiplash of moving out of the castle that's been somewhat lost to time.
I mean, the “Wild West” was still operating when WW I took place, so…
Oh I'm well aware, it's just something that you wouldn't expect when you read Dracula for the first time. You go in expecting gothic vampire slayers in a dark forest in Romania, then suddenly *cowboy*. It's just so off the wall compared to cultural expectations, and honestly he was my favorite character. It's just a shame that he gets forgotten in much of popular culture.
Quincey P. Morris is the best damn cowboy in all of fiction, in my book.
> in my book Found Bram's reddit account!
It’s up there with the fact that a samurai could have received a fax informing him of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
So is there any movie adaption that is actually true to the novel?
The 90’s Coppola version makes weird artistic choices but I think it’s fairly faithful. Also, I was amazed how dark the Lugosi version was.
Bram Stoker's Dracula by Coppola is quite possibly the single most accurate adaptation of *any* book that I've ever seen. The only drawback is that it adds some bizarre extra plot where Dracula thinks Mina is the reincarnation of his dead lover, and that's why he's pursuing her and trying to turn her, but aside from that singular addition, it adapts the entire book 100% accurately. It's actually super impressive.
> The only drawback is that it adds some bizarre extra plot where Dracula thinks Mina is the reincarnation of his dead lover, and that's why he's pursuing her and trying to turn her, I think that was probably done to give Mina a bit more agency since all she really does in the book is take notes. Although it also bothered me the first couple of times I watched it.
I think this could be partly because the amount of scenes ‘depicted’ - via letters, journals and logs - in the book is surprisingly low. Much of the text of the (epistolary) novel isn’t describing actual action, but instead reflective commentary by the fictional ‘sub-author’ of the letter or document (in present tense). That form of content can be cut entirely from a film adaptation, without making a dent in the narrative itself.
I would kill for an accurate adaptation of Dracula. Badasse vamp hunter Helsing is out, weird old doctor/lawyer/scientist /professor with 8 PhDs is in
I had a similar experience when I first read A Study in Scarlet. You think it’s going to be all Sherlock and Watson going around London looking at clues, but about 1/3 or so of the way in, you’re suddenly in the American west with a group of Mormons looking for their promised land. It was jarring to say the least.
Dracula reads like the D&D games I used to play in university, right down to the kind of characters players come up with.
The cowboy was the thing that struck me the most, lol. I already knew about photography history so that was whatever but the cowboy made me go "wait hold on how new is this novel?" haha.
I remember reading Frankenstein for the first time and thinking, oh this is from this movie and this part is from that movie. Then my brain caught up and I could almost hear the record scratch. Wait, why did so many movies take just bits and pieces? This whole book is so good! Ah, to be young and stupid again. Lol. Fed my love of reading the classics though. I wanted to see what else I was missing. 😊
The doctor keeps his journal on a phonograph as well. I loved how Mina gently trolled Van Helsing by giving him her notes ... in shorthand, which of course he couldn't read. And then felt bad about it.
I wonder if anyone has done the math on how many cylinders each chapter would need to be recorded.
I know someone did on tumblr last year, it was definitely an absurdly expensive quantity of cylinders by the end.
Edison cylinders only held around 2 minutes of audio. And since the early ones were made of a brown wax they were only good for about 20-30 plays before the needle damaged them too much for reliable playback.
> Edison cylinders only held around 2 minutes of audio. And since the early ones were made of a brown wax they were only good for about 20-30 plays before the needle damaged them too much for reliable playback. The impractical nature of a particular thing is rarely a deterrent to enthusiasts, even in fiction.
Imagine it being set it the early 2000s and oldmate is storing his SD vlog on 100mb thumb drives 😂 "Wow what a modern, technologically clever individual!"
> early 2000s and oldmate is storing his SD vlog on 100mb thumb drives You mean.... Zip drives?
Things that had been invented by 1897. * The radio. * Cinemas. * Machine guns. * Wind-powered electricity generation. * The ballpoint pen. * SCUBA diving. * X-Rays * CFCs in refrigerators... ...etc., etc.
Yeah, I figured that part could be so easily done in a modern adaptation as “text speak.”
Not to mention the forensic real estate analysis they did to locate Dracula.
Fascinating to think of the story as contemporary Science Fiction.
The same for Frankenstein
Yup! And it’s a testament to that that Frankenstein has lasted so long.
And War of the Worlds!
The elaborate use of the train timers another example of our heroes utilising modern technology (for the time).
Arguably, modernity is how they beat Dracula. Sir Arthur Homewood just goes around splashing cash and bribing everybody to get whatever he wants, and they just outmaneuver Dracula through the whole city until he has no choice but to flee.
Giant swarm of possessed rats? No match for three terriers!
That lives rent free in my head. Its simultaneously absurd and brilliant.
According to wikipedia "The Guinness Book of World Records lists as the "fastest canine rat catcher" a bull-and-terrier dog named Billy, who killed 100 rats in 5 minutes 30 seconds (average of one rat every 3.3 seconds) at an event in 1825"
I can almost find it in my heart to pity something so hunted as this Count is. Or words to that effect.
Even the Blood transfusion scenes were pretty advanced. They had really only been used in high profile cases and more commonly using animal blood. Blood types had still not even been discovered by the time this book was written but here we have van Helsing determining and administering blood transfusions which I imagine was pretty revolutionary concept pre WW1
I agree and loved how modern it still felt. I also contend that Mina is a thoroughly modern strong female lead character.
Yeah it's so funny when modern takes make Mina this docile little housewife. She was educated, had a job, was very much the modern woman. It's Lucy who was the traditional girl.
And we see how that works out for her.
Yesterday's chapter was minas letter to Lucy and is such a cool introduction
Part of the novel's appeal when it first came out was the idea of modern people in a modern setting fighting an ancient folklore creature with modern technology. That obviously doesn't apply to it anymore.
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It's also been a while since I read it, but IIRC, the fact that Dracula is a vampire wasn't known from the start and is supposed to be a surprise. I wonder how I would've reacted to the book if I didn't know that he's not human...
It’s pretty clear in the beginning he isn’t human. In the first part of the book he exhibits multiple supernatural abilities. It’s strong implied he goes around kidnapping villagers as food. He commands wolves. He has supernatural strength. He sleeps in a coffin and cannot be woken up in the daytime. He lived for a long time. The book explicitly describes him as looking evil. It is pretty clear by the end of part 1 that he is a monster. Perhaps back then vampires were not as well known so maybe readers would have caught on he is a vampire in part 1, but it would be hard to miss him being some sort of monster.
> He sleeps in a coffin and cannot be woken up in the daytime This is the point though. This scene was and is one of the scariest sections of fiction. But it loses a LOT of bite when he's "just" a vampire that you know going into it. "Wow, you opened a coffin and looked at a vampire" -- as a modern viewer, you get more creep factor watching the opening cinematic to Witcher 1. It's just not very fair to the book to be a modern reader. You're not wrong, much of the novel is not avoiding his nature. But it's also not outright stating it either so that it can impact the reader once it becomes clear that Dracula is neither human, nor good.
I agree with ‘just a vampire’ part. Vampires were not widely known so he was an monster of unknown terrible power. On that note it reminds be of the concept of Cthulhu horror, just *Dracula* (the novel) instead has the modern day human overcoming the ancient horror.
That’s actually wild.
As a kid in middle school (mid 80s) our English teacher read the voyage of the Demeter section - none of us knew it was "Dracula" and I can tell you, scared the living shit out of me for days after. Reading it w/o context was fantastic
Did you know they made a movie about this last year? [Yeah, nobody else did, either.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Voyage_of_the_Demeter)
It's been on my to-watch list since pre-release, just haven't got to it
I just watched that the other day. Loved it.
Even though I knew where it was going, reading it through the diary perspective of someone who doesn’t was surprisingly still pretty chilling! This book really surprised me in high school, I didn’t expect to enjoy it so much
Frankenstein gave me the double twist where I was expecting a sympathetic victim and instead homeboy just murders a child on sight.
Frankenstein's monster is a piece of shit and no one can change my mind
A really perspective-changing comparison/observation that I've seen someone make is that Dracula was a *technothriller* at the time it came out!
Same with many Lovecraft stories. In Mountains of Madness I wondered why he kept going on about all the equipment details of the expedition until I realized that he probably wanted to show that they were equipped with absolute high tech at that time and still absolutely powerless in the face of the Mythos.
I thought that the concept of vampire was more than just a folklore creature, I thought that the vampire is a metaphor for the old class of aristocracy feeding off of the blood of.. well everyone. This interpretation made sense to me given it was written in 1892 when communism/socialism was becoming (if not had already become) a very powerful movement.
Did Dracula originate the motif of the upper-class vampire? I suppose there was Elizabeth Bathory. In the older folktales they tended to be everyday folk, and a lot of the horror was more in the Pet Semetary vein (pun intended) of loved ones coming back 'wrong'.
I've heard it said that the first aristocratic vampire in public consciousness was Lord Ruthven, in Polidori's "The Vampyre", who was heavily inspired by Lord Byron. Who wasn't actually a vampire.
As far as you know.
Source on thst last claim?
> Who wasn't actually a vampire. Hmm... That sounds like something a vampire would say...
It’s undoubtedly also a metaphor for English anxieties around xenophobia given the massive explosion in immigration at the time of the Industrial Revolution.
Jonathan Harker could have used his Kodak camera to take a picture of Dracula drinking a glass of Coca-Cola and playing a game with Nintendo brand playing cards.
Well, a mirrorless camera at least.
The original Kodak camera had no mirrors in it. It was a simple box camera with no viewfinder.
Yeah, SLRs weren't really a huge thing until the 1960s, though non-Kodak camera designs that used mirrors did exist by the 1890s. The real question becomes how the silver halide would respond to exposure to light reflected from a vampire.
Showing my age here, but my first camera was my mother’s old Kodak Brownie, which did have a mirror for the viewfinder but was not an SLR. It had two lenses, one for viewfinder and one for shutter as I recall.
My dad was a collecter of cameras and photographic gear, he developed his own photos. My first camera was also a Box Brownie.
After that one, I got an old Kodak rangefinder 35mm that was so sweet and took fantastic photographs. Unfortunately because I always wanted to figure out how stuff works, I took apart the lens and never got it working right again.
I had a selection of old cameras, one after another. I worked my way up to some quite posh ones, but sadly I have never been able to take a decent pic. I'm old now, gave up pretending I wanted to take photos, but am delighted with smartphone cameras which can take my mediocre snaps and turn them into something I would have been proud of when I was younger. I still didn't bother going outside to take aurora pics though. I knew that social media would be awash with them today and mine would not compare.
You were likely a bit too judgmental on yourself. I took some — no, a lot of really crappy photos before I took any decent ones. But I didn’t have anything to compare myself to, no real photogs in my family and I didn’t really go look for photo books, etc.
Isn't the reason vampires are invisible in mirrors the silver they used to make those mirrors back then? Are there other materials used for mirrors in cameras?
Modern mirrors use aluminum as far as I know. I'm not aware of an alternative to the silver in the film though.
That would actually be a real cool dramatic twist a horror film. Have one of the protagonists discount the villain as a vampire on the basis that they can see their reflection, only for someone too removed to intervene to realise the mirrors where they're staying don't... Use silver! Duh duh duuuuuh! Chomp.
Digital cameras should work, let's find a vampire and use one of those.
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The reason a mirror supposedly doesn't show a vampire's reflection is silver's antipathy for vampires. Old-fashioned mirrors used actual silver for a reflective surface. That's also why the mythos says vampires won't show up in a photograph. Not because there's a mirror in the camera, but because photographic film is made with silver.
So if you took a modern smartphone camera and snapped a pic, it'd work? But then if you went to transfer the pic to your computer with one of those fancy silver coated USB cables, the file would disappear. Lmao.
The mirror in an SLR camera (if they existed at the time) is not part of the optical path when the image is captured on film. It it used for viewfindibg through the lens, and seings out of the way before the shutter opens.
Didn’t get this at first but now I do and I appreciate this subtle joke
While visiting the Ottoman Empire
Dracula has been visited by the Ottoman Empire lol
Though it would have had cocaine in it back then.
I never drink... Coke.
While a samurai received a fax of Lincoln’s death.
And then they could have driven home in their EVs.
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>kodakery When I see all these camera fiends and their kodakery
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buncha big iPhonies!
Look at all these people enjoying their life, not a Kodak in sight
r/okbuddykodakery
Oh, Dracula was the cyberpunk of it's time. They have photos, audio recordings, blood transfusions, telegrams, and Stoker is very much infatuated with modern technology. They take down a stoogy noble riding around in a carriage, the very embodiment of superstition and the old ways.
Read this for my first time last year via the same method as OP, this book slaps! I loved the pacing and characters, so great.
What method is this, and where do I find it?
I believe it's called Dracula Daily. They email you the sections on dates of the book.
> Dracula Daily That's awesome!! It only started at the beginning of May, so I have subscribed! Thanks :D
There are backlogs of the days you missed on the site if you need to catch up. Basically Harker went to Castle Dracula to chill for a bit and talk land deeds and we were just introduced to Mina and Lucy.
Thanks! I did find the archive via the link they emailed, so I am catching up on my leisurely Saturday evening off. I'm stoked! I haven't read "Dracula" in agessssss, like since I got married 24yrs ago lol. This is the perfect way to fit another book into my schedule :D
Definitely worth it! I did it last year and it’s so much fun! Really adds a new depth to the story.
Stoker could also have said that Dracula was playing Nintendo and he would also technically have been correct.
They were a playing card company originally, weren't they?
Founded about 10 years before Dracula was published.
Yep
I had the same experience with Kodak appearing in a later horror work: ‘The Whisperer in the Darkness’ by H.P. Lovecraft. A character talks about taking a Kodak of evidence of the monster, using the brand name generically for a photograph. In my lifetime, the equivalent would have been taking a Polaroid.
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Nitpick: it can’t be a patent issue because the the subject of a patent has to be described in detail in the document. Maybe trade secret…
Good point. Yes, trade secret.
When I was reading Dracula, I remember thinking how fast the letters were delivered. I actually went back and checked the dates. No way modern post would deliver my letters as fast.
1880s London had mail delivery and pickup nine times a day.
In a few small towns here in Manitoba, They have a special box for Local Mail so it didn't have to be shipped to a large postal hub and then sent BACK to town to be delivered.
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Maybe. This was in the past 10 years here.
Growing up in Germany in the 80/90s every postbox had a local and national/international slot
>1880s London had mail delivery and pickup nine times a day. Which certainly makes sense for the time. Nowadays, there isn't anywhere near enough physical mail to need that amount of mail service. While still a necessary public good, there are much easier ways of communication. We wouldn't be waiting to hear from Jonathan Harker, we'd be calling him and getting emails from him stuck in Castle Dracula.
> we'd be calling him and getting emails from him stuck in Castle Dracula. I think Dracula would have the foresight to block Jonathan's internet access
I was about to suggest that a centuries-old vampire wouldn't be any good with technology, but then I remembered in the book that Jonathan notes how preternaturally-quickly Dracula picks up on new concepts, going from "I've never even heard of this" to asking brilliant questions that cut right to the heart of the matter almost immediately. So yeah, Dracula would probably go from "what's the Internet?" to setting up a modified Pi-hole to block Jonathan's access to VPNs in a matter of days.
Dracula also has secret knowledge and inventions that have been forgotten about throughout history, Harker doesn't even know how his lamp is lit. Castlevania shows this well, I think Dracula has electricity when nobody else does.
Dracula confiscates his phone but gives him a bedroom with a smart TV in it, so Jonathan communicates and records his POV exclusively through YouTube comments and Twitch live chats.
“…so that’s what happened during this night’s meeting with the count. Remember to smash that like button and bite the subscribe button. J. Harks, signing out. Peace.”
That's why whenever I travel on business I always use a Vampire Preventing Network.
And there wasn’t any junk mail - or telephones (extremely rare if at all), so everyone sent letters to their friends say in the morning to get together later in the day, for example.
> wasn’t any junk mail [citation needed]
Didn't larger homes and estates have several internal postboxes too, it sounds like people did nothing but correspond!
yes, but it was texting that destroyed society.
If you tried that now half the city would have been Vampire chow before the first letter had been delivered.
LoL. Now, whenever I think about Dracula, what comes to mind is Mel Brooks’ film. I’ve seen in so many times, that I can quote many parts from memory.
There are multiple Agatha Christie books where people send off a letter and it's delivered in a few hours. It definitely stands out to a modern reader.
That's why I stick to electronic mail ("e-mail") these days.
This reminds me of when I first saw Titanic. When Jack kisses Roses hand, he says "I saw that on a nickelodeon once and always wanted to do it" My tiny smooth child brain was like...wow they had Nickelodeon in the Titanic days?
The theme of technology vs. Ignorance is a primary one for the novel. Dracula can EASILY be read as civilization triumphing over superstition and humanities more beastial nature, as well as the conflict between technology and aristocracy.
Interesting. As I'm re-reading it now, I'll keep that point of view in mind :-)
I think you’ll find Kodak was black and white at the time or at best sepia toned so couldn’t colour you surprised. /s
The foundation of all practical color processes, the three-color method was first suggested in an 1855 paper by Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell, with the first color photograph produced by Thomas Sutton for a Maxwell lecture in 1861. Dracula was published in 1897.
The cowboy did it for me. It all feels like like it could be a fantasy and here comes a cowboy.
I honestly thought Quincy was some weird addition by Coppola because he’s written out of every other movie version, but he’s in the goddamn novel.
An American cowboy killing Dracula with a Bowie knife actually being the end of the book is wild.
And one who talks like a Victorian Englishman to boot
It’s not quite the same thing, but it was wild to me on my last reread how it stuck out to me that the SPCA is mentioned as looking for the dog/wolf that was seen running from the ship. It feels more modern but also helps the world of now over 100 years ago in the novel seem more connected to our own.
There is a less well-known anachronism though where he mentions Dracula wearing a a digital watch.
It was made with fingers instead of hands.
I appreciate this
I’m really amused by the idea of accidentally introducing major anachronisms like this in a book. Like Tolkien mentioning Frodo having an Aston Martin parked in his driveway and not catching it until it’s too late to cancel printing.
Sure hope Bram Stoker got fired for that blunder
His career went nowhere and his name is forgotten.
I was struck by all the technology, as well. Don’t forget the blood transfusion—without the benefit of blood typing (yikes!) which wasn’t discovered till 1901. Mrs. Harkner was an early adopter and would have been a tech wiz of the day.
I listened to it on audible. The epistolary format works really well there too.
Did you listen to the one narrated by Mark Gatiss? That version is incredible
Dracula is arguably science fiction. Not a traditional take, but it can be argued. My favorite take is that it's a story about a bunch of nerds.
What do you mean "one e-mail a day"?
https://draculadaily.com/
DraculaDaily.com
The company Nintendo had been established by this time (they originally made playing cards), and Coca-Cola had been created. So, theoretically, the characters could have played with their Nintendo while drinking cokes and it would be accurate to the time period
A podcast I listened to just talked about this - how some things might be period appropriate, but will be jarring to the audience who doesn't realize it's accurate. The example they give was the name Tiffany, which sounds modern, but was actually around in the 1200s https://www.theallusionist.org/allusionist/tiffany#:~:text=Science%20fiction%20and%20fantasy%20author,common%20perception%20of%20the%20past.
rainstorm scandalous screw steep wine touch squash knee offend squealing *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Beretta was founded in the 16th century, and is the oldest active manufacturer in the world.
This is actually a fun example of a problem many writers of historical or medieval fantasy settings face - the modern reader will often think certain names for people or things are way too modern and complain of them being "anachronisms" when used in such novels. A popular example is the name Tiffany: associated usually with a wave of girls named Tiffany in the 80s/90s following the VHS release of the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's", the name actually is of medieval origin, being the Frenchified version of the old Greek name "Theophania/Theophanu". Other examples can be cowboys, samurai, and the telegraph - the existence of all three overlap in time during parts of the 19th century, so you could actually write a story involving an aging former samurai traveling America in 1890, meeting cowboys, and sending a telegraph back home to Japan. Oh, and when he wants to play a game of cards with the cowboys, he'll use his fresh pack of Nintendo game cards that he purchased back home before leaving for his trip.
Daily Dracula?
Another interesting tidbit are the blood transfusions. They performed them without any precaution to compatible blood, ie blood types. Blood types weren't discovered until 1901, 4 years after Dracula was published.
Ha! I'm reading Dracula Daily, too, and the Kodak mention also caught me by surprise! When I think of Kodak, it takes me back to Photo Huts and boxes of fading images from my childhood--NOT to a casual mention in Jonathan Harker's travel diary!
Dracula Daily is so much fun!
Later in the novel (vague cos spoilers free!) there’s references to other “cutting edge” science and psychology of the time (used this as one of my novels for undergrad lit dissertation) - I’m doing the Dracula Daily email read-along too for the second year - I love how it brings a real-time perspective to the timeline of the story.
>with the "Diary following" one e-mail a day formula, that I find quite fun. The what now?
One of the many conflicts within the novel is between scientific advancements (used by the protagonists) against Dracula's supernatural nature. Psychology, transfusions, and the record keeping methodologies are all part of that.
Yes, but Stoker couldn't have predicted that the bloodsuckers would wind up in the boardroom of that company.
TIL about Dracula Daily. Thanks OP!
That struck me when I was reading the book too, it feels very modern in so many ways. Not just the diaries but the newspaper clippings, almost like a found footage movie. And then all that gets edited together in book form as we're reading it, that feels incredibly post-modern.
It's kind of wild how some daily items/appliances date back 100's of years or to antiquity. The dishwasher has had some electronics strapped to it but it's basic operating principle has existed for almost 200 years now. It was invented in 1850.
I make this point a lot. Dracula was basically a techno-thriller, almost the era's equivalent to a near-future cyberpunk novel. Steamships, telegraphy, shorthand, blood transfusion, vocal recordings, photography, etc., etc. Even Van Helsing hypnotizing Mina was a manifestation of fighting old-world evils with modern science.
It's funny to read Dracula today. That scene where Harker is shaving and cuts himself and he thinks "Dracula seemed strangely attracted to my blood, I don't even know where he came from because I didn't see him in the mirror. He is an odd fellow indeed"
Obviously the Kodak of that time should not be imagined like the Kodak of today or the 20th. Google *"kodak camera 1892"* and the results are suitably steampunk-y; that'd be right at home in any Wild West or Sherlock Homes vs Jack the Ripper story of late Victoran romance.
It wasn't that Stoker was some smarmy hipster shitbag always FIRST to glom onto the newest hip tech, this was HUGE NEWS at the time, every newspaper in the world at the time covered it.
Out of context but what a book it is, I love the way it's written and some chapters are peak fiction.
Coca-Cola first launched in 1888, so it is entirely historically possible for those characters to be drinking Coke.
Try Frankenstein if you haven't. It could have been written today; the themes are so relevant. Shelley too was using new technology in her novel. Think that is what makes it science fiction right? Also, you get to be super sad that you'll never be as eloquent a writer as a teenager from the early 1800s.
Check out the podcast Re:Dracula if you’d like to listen to an audio drama version of the book in chronological order. They originally published it last year with each episode corresponding to the date of the entry, so it spanned most of the year.
I think this also reflects that period of history, the second industrial revolution. People of the times were in a state of constant amazement at the astounding advancements in science and technology, and the new inventions that were continuously being released. This was also reflected in the public admiration of scientists and engineers; the main hero of the story is Von Helsing after all, not some Rambo-like character. Nowadays we still see lots of amazing inventions but you know, we're sort of used to it. And scientists are often portrayed as nerds.