The New Annotated Dracula [Hardcover]

 

 

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I originally found this book at Suspect Video in Toronto and was immediately drawn to it: admittedly due to the fact that Neil Gaiman wrote its Introduction. I won't create a summary of Bram Stoker's Dracula in this review. Chances are, most readers are already familiar with at least one edition of it and those that are unfamiliar can find many other summaries of the narrative online. Instead, what I want to talk about is what this annotated version of Dracula has that the other versions do not.

Leslie S. Klinger -- who is also the author responsible for The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes -- introduces his aim in his "Editor's Preface." Essentially, he not only seeks to provide background on the novel and its characters and what may have influenced them, but rather he wants to present his scholarly footnotes and research in such a way as though to hint upon the fact that the struggle between the Victorian vampire-hunters and Dracula himself is a story based on true events. It is this fun premise that allows him to explore the mysteries and strange details inherent in Bram Stoker's narrative: examining Stoker not as the creator of Dracula, but as someone who is compiling true events together to create a narrative and making you -- as the reader -- wonder if Stoker himself isn't being manipulated to change some of the details for ... someone else's purposes. If so, just what really are a vampire's strengths ... or weaknesses?

With this as a creepy background premise, reiterated again in Neil Gaiman's Introduction -- along with the author's own encounter with Bram Stoker's novel, its various creative offshoots and his own ironic warning that introductions to books can colour a reader's perception of that narrative -- the book is relatively straightforward and very interesting.

In Part I of the book, Klinger covers the context of Dracula -- from the details of the Victorian time period it is written in, to possible literary influences behind and vampire literature before Dracula, all the way to biographical information on Bram Stoker himself, the characters of Dracula and a creative "reason why Dracula came to be written." After this comes the 27-chapter text of Bram Stoker's Dracula itself. It is a story told in the epistolary format: a narrative seemingly created through the piecing together of all the different journal entries of Dracula's hunters.

In his footnotes, Klinger makes it abundantly clear that this is an unabridged copy and that the Stoker's "Author's Preface" included at the beginning comes from an Icelandic edition of the novel. Klinger's footnotes on the margins of Dracula are a very comprehensive series of notes with regards to definitions, folklore, geography, history, character suppositions, other literary references and references to other scholarly and annotated works dealing with this same original text. There are also drawings, portraits and sketches from vampire films, illuminated scripts, posters, and other miscellaneous and contextually appropriate material. One thing of note is that Klinger also has footnotes based on the original manuscript of Dracula: comparing and contrasting it with the finished text before you. At least one of those footnotes taken from the original manuscript seems to propose something of a different ending to Dracula altogether.

After the main annotated text is Klinger's Appendices: which includes Bram Stoker's short story and rejected Dracula chapter "Dracula's Guest," a photographed "calender page" taken from Stoker's notes with discussion, a proposed chronological chart of the events in Dracula, and a chart that translates words created in the British Whitby dialect into English.

Finally in Part II of his work, Klinger talks about the stories, plays and films created for Dracula after Stoker as well as other vampires created after Dracula itself in literature, film and television: including Anne Rice's vampires and those in Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel. After this is a note about the development of literary societies that study Dracula, a very extensive bibliography for those who want to read the books referenced in this word as well as a brief note specifically about Bram Stoker's notes and Klinger's own Acknowledgments. In short, with this book Klinger brings a fully comprehensive examination not only into Dracula, but also into the popular culture that preceded and came from it. It is a definitive book for any vampire lover or gothic horror scholar to own and you can see that Klinger truly enjoys his work in exhuming the vampire mythos.

Certainly, the annotated section of this book would be difficult to read through in one sitting and is more something to read from time to time when you have it to spare. Indeed, it is more than enough information to keep any reader occupied for a really long time ... even if that information, as Klinger warns, should be considered suspect with regards to dealing vampires, or the Vampire himself.

"Dracula" was not the first vampire novel, nor was it Bram Stoker's first book.

But after years of research, Stoker managed to craft the ultimate vampire novel, which has spawned countless movies, spinoffs, and books that follow the blueprint of the Transylvanian count. Eerie, horrifying and genuinely mysterious, this is a book that was crying out for the kind of loving annotation that "The New Annotated Dracula" graces it with.

First we have an eloquent introduction by dark fantasy master Neil Gaiman, which serves as the gateway to a longer, densely informative foreword by Leslie S. Klinger. Klinger does some pretty extensive exploration of the origins of vampire literature, the impact of the Dracula character, and his presence in mass media ever since Stoker whipped together this book. It's a nice, meaty intro to the story:

And on to that story: Real estate agent Jonathan Harker arrives in Transylvania, to arrange a London house sale to Count Dracula. But as the days go by, Harker witnesses increasingly horrific events, leading him to believe that Dracula is not actually human. His fiancee Mina arrives in Transylvania, and finds that he has been feverish. Meanwhile the count has vanished -- along with countless boxes filled with dirt.

And soon afterwards, strange things happen: a ship piloted by a dead man crashes on the shore, after a mysterious thing killed the crew. A lunatic talks about "Him" coming. And Mina's pal Lucy dies of mysterious blood loss, only to come back as an undead seductress. Dracula has arrived in England -- then the center of the Western world -- and intends to make it his own...

The entire text is reworked into columns, with EXTENSIVE footnoting off to each side -- Klinger loads the text down with literary interpretations, historical explanations, places, attitudes of the time, clarification (the old woman who gave Harker the rosary, says Klinger, was probably a Hungarian immigrant) and even a bit of nitpicking. At times it gets a bit long-winded, but for sheer volume of explanatory information those footnotes can't be beat. It's a big thick chunk of a book though, so not advises for casual walking-around reading.

"Dracula" is the grandaddy of Lestat and other elegantly alluring bloodsuckers, but that isn't the sole reason why this novel is a classic. It's also incredibly atmospheric, and very well-written. Not only is it very freaky, in an ornate Victorian style, but it is also full of restrained, quiet horror and creepy eroticism. What's more, it's shaped the portrayal of vampires in movies and books, even to this day.

Despite already knowing what's going on for the first half of the book, it's actually kind of creepy to see these people whose lives are being disrupted by Dracula, but don't know about vampires. It's a bit tempting to yell "It's a vampire, you idiots!" every now and then, but you can't really blame them. Then the second half kicks in, with accented professor Van Helsing taking our heroes on a quest to save Mina from Dracula.

And along the way, while our heroes try to figure stuff out, Stoker spins up all these creepy hints of Dracula's arrival. Though he wrote in the late 19th-century manner, very verbose and a bit stuffy, his skill shines through. The book is crammed with intense, evocative language, with moments like Dracula creeping down a wall, or the dead captain found tied to the wheel. Once read, they stick in your mind throughout the book.

It's also a credit to Stoker that he keeps his characters from seeming like idiots or freaks, which they could have easily seemed like. Instead, he puts little moments of humanity in them, like Van Helsing admitting that his wife is in an asylum. Even the letters and diaries are written in different styles; for example, Seward's is restrained and analytical, while Mina's is exuberant and bright.

Even Dracula himself is an overpowering presence despite his small amount of actual screen time, and not just as a vampire -- Stoker presents him as passionate, intense, malignant, and probably the smartest person in the entire book. If Van Helsing hadn't thwarted him, he probably would have taken over the world -- not the Victorian audience's ideal ending.

Intelligent, frightening and very well-written, "Dracula" is the well-deserved godfather of all modern vampire books and movies -- and "The New Annotated Dracula" is a worthy exploration of that book.

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