84 books like Hollywood Gothic

Leslie Klinger’s annotated version of Dracula is one of the most recent editions, and it surely is the most entertaining one, suitable for readers who are no Dracula experts (yet). Some of his comments build on the (purely fictional) assumption that the Count himself had his hand in editing Stoker’s text. In a single instance, when it comes to the historical Dracula family, Klinger drops the ball, but he makes a unique contribution to Dracula Studies by comparing Dracula’s final text with that of Stoker’s typescript, found in a barn in Pennsylvania in the 1980s. His attention to geographical details greatly inspired my own research into this matter. The book comes with a number of illustrations and helpful appendixes.

Barbara Belford’s 1996 book is one of the classics in its field, next to the Stoker biographies by Harry Ludlam, Daniel Farson, and Paul Murray. With a background in journalism, Belford created a very readable introduction to Stoker’s life. Her book still is an invaluable source for fans and scholars trying to understand the making of Dracula. It is a good stepping stone for readers who would like to dive deeper later on, e.g., by studying David Skal’s more recent work, Something in the Blood. For me personally, it gave me a very colorful image of Stoker’s life and helped me better understand him as a person and an author.

A must-have for everyone who wants to learn about Dracula. In short chapters and with humorous language, Miller wipes the floor with all authors who never cared to do their homework and have been spreading misunderstandings about Stoker’s epochal novel. Taken altogether, it outlines what I would call the “Millerian paradigm,” claiming that as an author of fiction, Stoker was not bound to historical or geographical accuracy, and may have messed up a detail or two. By now, I have demonstrated that Stoker was more precise than Miller believed, and have worded a new paradigm focusing on the “Paradox of Fact and Fiction” Stoker was caught in. But we all stand on the shoulders of giants, and Elizabeth Miller was the most important of them.

Although Bram Stoker was a fiction writer presenting us with a fantastic, supernatural story, he did meticulous research in an effort to create a convincing backdrop: history, geography, psychology, vampire lore, dreaming and somnambulism, animal behavior, the history of the Devil—yes, even seamen’s yarn was the subject of Stoker’s studies. Dracula scholar Clive Leatherdale has done a superb job by tracking the novelist’s key sources, summarizing them for us and highlighting their relevance for the making of Dracula. A decade later, Leatherdale would release Bram Stoker’s Dracula Unearthed, an annotated edition of the novel. To find affordable second-hand editions of both classics, you have to search the Internet a bit, but for everyone aspiring to become a Dracula expert, both books are indispensable.

Before you can understand contemporary manifestations of zombies and vampires in shows like The Walking Dead or The Strain, it helps to know the long and varied cultural history of these monsters. Gregory Waller explores how each generation imagined and interpreted zombies and vampires, both in print and on-screen. How do they speak to our fears and prejudices, or even desires? I found it very helpful in writing Planet Auschwitz.

Although this book focuses on just the most famous vampire narrative of all, you don’t need to look far into Dracula to find universal vampire themes: sexuality, paranoia, misogyny, xenophobia, psychoanalysis, and the sacred power of blood. This collection of essays also sets Stoker’s tale within the wider context of the Victorian vampire boom, and looks at what became of his tale on stage and screen. It shows how Stoker was tapping into richer, deeper seams than even he realised, making Dracula “one of the most obsessional texts of all time, a black hole of the imagination”, in horror expert David Skal’s words. “The most frightening thing about Dracula’, says Skal, “is the strong probability that it meant far less to Bram Stoker than it has come to mean for us.”

Frayling’s book is very much a forerunner of Groom’s, being one of the first serious (but also immensely readable) studies of the vampire in culture. This one keeps its sights trained more on the nineteenth-century vampire. It begins with The Vampyre, the story written by John Polidori at the Villa Diodati at the same infamous gathering that spawned Marty Shelley’s Frankenstein. Polidori was Lord Byron’s physician, but the two men fell out badly, and Polidori’s aristocratic bloodsucker Lord Ruthven is widely regarded as modeled on Byron. Although now little remembered, The Vampyre began the Victorian craze for vampires that culminated in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Frayling is the perfect guide, being not only a cultural historian of wide learning but also a splendid communicator.

I must admit this book appealed to me first because it was co-written by the great-grand-nephew of Bram Stoker. I also loved that a young Bram Stoker was a main character. I won’t offer any spoilers but it’s a fascinating tale about how Stoker was inspired to write his book, Dracula. If you’re looking for a horror tale, this book supplies plenty of terror and like most books that feature Dracula as a character, you will find yourself in locations all over Europe. This book offers yet another fine example of the enduring spell Count Dracula casts on our imaginations.

This Icelandic Dracula remained hidden from the world-at-large as merely a translation of the original for more than a century before Hans Corneel de Roos translated the Icelandic back into English. What he discovered is that Asmundsson took the liberty of making Dracula his own book. A Nordic spin on the vampire is reason enough to discover this interesting take on Stoker’s Dracula. Two-thirds of the book takes place at the Count’s castle in Transylvania where the notorious vampire is given much more depth and voice. Nordic lore spices this story up as well as a very seductive vampiress. The book is also much shorter than Stoker’s, which makes it an easy read.

I can’t get enough of this supernatural classic, which is made all the more vivid by the way its story unfolds through letters, telegrams, diary entries, and newspaper clippings. It is the found-footage horror story of its era.

Like Frankenstein, it has been adapted hundreds of times, officially and unofficially, into nearly every medium, yet the original novel is unparalleled for holding the reader in its icy grip. Stoker brought his own fears to the page, and I am always surprised at how, in just a few pages, they become my fears, as well.