Dracula revived by Stoker descendant

A direct descendent of the author of Dracula has written a prequel to Bram Stoker's classic vampire gothic, drawing on the original journals, notes and scripts of its creator - some of which suggested he believed his story may actually be true. 

The only existing draft of Bram Stoker's Dracula begins on page 102, leaving the first 101 pages of his story a tantalising mystery. Now his great-grand-nephew Dacre Stoker has imagined how the original story might have begun, featuring a young Bram Stoker himself as the protagonist.

Dracul (Bantam), co-written with J D Barker and fully authorised by the Bram Stoker Estate, takes readers back to the very beginning when, in 1868, at the age of 22, Stoker has locked himself inside an abbey's tower to face off a vile and ungodly beast - armed with mirrors, crucifixes, holy water, a gun, and a bottle of plum brandy. Whilst in prayer to survive the night, Stoker also resolves to leave a record of what he has witnessed, and begins to scribble out the events that brought him to this point, proceeding to tell a tale of childhood illness, a mysterious nanny, and stories once thought to be true fables.

It has also emerged that in a recently discovered prefacing note to the 1901 Icelandic edition of Dracula Stoker suggested his tale was true. It has been speculated that the caution was edited out of the English version of the novel for fear that Londoners, in wake of the Jack the Ripper murders, couldn't cope with claims a supernatural beast also stalked their streets.

"Bram Stoker constantly revised his script," the book's editor at Transworld, editorial director Simon Taylor, told The Bookseller. "It turns out the edition that was published in Britain was basically the latest in a long line of revised editions, some of which went out into the big wide world from foreign-language publishers ... It’s a slightly torturous story but the evidence suggests there were 101 pages that were exorcised from all editions that finally went to print. The Icelandic edition doesn’t have these pages either but it has that preface."

JD Barker left and Dacre Stoker (©Dayna Barker)

As part of their research for the book, Stoker and Barker managed to track down the original Dracula manuscript that had been sold at auction some time ago to the co-founder of Microsoft, Paul Allen. The pair had to sign a non-disclosure agreement prohibiting them from revealing much of what they saw, but they were able to confirm the work in Allen's possession begins at page 102, observing the number crossed out at the top and re-labeled as page one with the first 101 pages missing. Throughout the manuscript they were able to find passages cut from the final draft referencing elements of the story from those first 101 pages, which has become the inspiration for the prequel Dracul.

"Mystery surrounds the publication of Dracula, that’s what becomes very apparent," said Taylor. "This lends itself to picking up a sense of what’s in the shadows, what Dacre Stoker found in his ancestors’ notebooks, the jottings. Bram Stoker was an obsessive note-maker and note-taker and, like many a late Victorian literary gentleman, he was always scribbling ideas and thoughts." 

Asked what Dacre Stoker found in the pages of those journals, Taylor teased: "I don’t want to give away any spoilers! In the script of Dracul, which we’re publishing in October, there’s a fascinating author’s note in the back and it’s when you read this that things fall into place. 

"What Stoker and J D Barker posit in Dracul is that the Stoker family, his ancestors, were protagonists right at the beginning of Dracula’s story. And then there’s this mysterious nanny. Bram Stoker was extremely ill and bed-bound - in fact he probably nearly died on a number of occasions, from the age of 7 - and then he underwent a miraculous recovery.

"They’re putting pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together, and where there’s a missing piece, they’re creating something to fit. The result is a novel that fits perfectly with the novel Dracula we all know and love; it’s epistolary, the tone is very similar, it segues seemlessly into Dracula itself."

Taylor said he moved "unusually quickly" on behalf of Transworld to secure UK & Commonwealth rights to the work, which is already receiving acclaim from the likes of Goosebumps creator R L Stine and James Patterson. Aptly publishing just ahead of Halloween, film rights have meanwhile been snapped up by Paramount with Andy Muschietti, behind the 2017 cinematic adaptation of Stephen King's novel It, attached to direct. Jenny Meyer at the Jenny Meyer Literary Agency is handling foreign rights to the work on behalf of Kristin Nelson.

Following the resurgence of horror and ghost stories reported by The Bookseller last week, could it be vampires will also be making a come back? "Absolutely," said Taylor.

"I hope this leads the charge," he said. "Novels like The Silent Companion have breathed life into the gothic once more and what we’ve got here is the prequel to arguably the most celebrated and terrifying horror of them all."

Dracul will publish on 18th October 2018 in harback priced £12.99.