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Bram Stoker's Vampire Trap BRAM STOKER’S VAMPIRE TRAP VLAD THE IMPALER AND HIS NAMELEss DOUBLE BY HANS CORNEEL DE ROOS, MA MUNICH EMAIL: [email protected] HOMEPAGE: WWW.HANSDEROOS.COM PUBLISHED BY LINKÖPING UNIVERSITY ELECTRONIC PREss S-581 83 LINKÖPING, SWEDEN IN THE SERIES: LINKÖPING ELECTRONIC ARTICLES IN COMPUTER AND INFORMATION SCIENCE SERIES EDITOR: PROF. ERIK SANDEWALL AbsTRACT Since Bacil Kirtley in 1958 proposed that Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula, the best known literary character ever, shared his historical past with the Wallachian Voivode Vlad III Dracula, an intense debate about this connection has developed and other candidates have been suggested, like the Hungarian General János Hunyadi – a proposal resurfacing in the most recent annotated Dracula edition by Leslie Klinger (2008). By close-reading Stoker’s sources, his research notes and the novel, I will demonstrate that Stoker’s novel initially links his Count to the person of Vlad III indeed, not Hunyadi, although the novelist neither knew the ruler’s first name, nor his father’s name, nor his epithet “the Impaler”, nor the cruelties attributed to him. Still – or maybe for this very reason – Stoker did not wish to uphold this traceable identity: In Chapter 25, shortly before the decisive chase, he removes this link again, by way of silent substitution, cloaked by Professor van Helsing’s clownish distractions. Like the Vampire Lord Ruthven, disappearing through the “vampire trap” constructed by James R. Planché for his play The Brides of the Isles in the English Opera House, later renamed to Lyceum Theatre and run by Stoker, the historical Voivode Vlad III Dracula is suddenly removed from the stage: In the final chapters, the Vampire Hunters pursue a nameless double. Smoothly performed, this piece of stage magic has gone unnoticed for more than one hundred years now. As a consequence, most of the arguments related to the Count’s antecedents turn out to suffer from ignoratio delenchi (the fallacy of irrelevant conclusion). The “marriage” of Count Dracula and Vlad the Impaler needs no divorce, as filed for by Toronto Prof. Em. Elizabeth Miller in 1998: As Stoker revoked this bond before his book went to print, it was never consummated and can be annulled without much ado. 1 http://ep.liu.se/ea/cis/2012/002/ 16 March 2012 Hans C. de Roos: Bram Stoker’s Vampire Trap TABLE OF CONTENTS AbsTRACT.............................................................................................................................................1 TABLE OF CONTENTS...........................................................................................................................2 PUBLICATION DATA; COPYRIGHT AND CITATION................................................................................3 DEDICATION, AcKNOWLEDGEMENTS...................................................................................................4 INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................................5 I – FROM THE NAMELEss “COUNT____STYRIA” TO “COUNT DRACULA”.......................................6 II – VAN HELSING AND COUNT DRACULA ON THE VAMPIRE’S IDENTITY........................................8 III – SZEKLER OR WALLACHIAN?........................................................................................................ 9 IV – WILKINSON’S AccOUNT ON THE PRINCIPALITIES OF WALLACHIA AND MOLDAVIA............10 V – JÁNOS HUNYADI OR VLAD DRACULA III?...................................................................................10 • Text comparison Wilkinson/Stoker’s noTes/count Dracula’s speech............11 • Facsimile of Stoker’s noTes Rosenbach p. 71 and 72............................................12 VI – VLAD THE IMPALER, RADU THE HANDSOME AND MICHAEL THE BRAVE..............................14 • PainTings of Vlad III and Michael II receiVing Turkish delegaTes....................15 VII – OTHER VOIVODES OF THE DRAcULESTI LINE..........................................................................16 VIII – Bram Stoker as Harker’s puppeT?...................................................................................17 ix – CounTing counTs....................................................................................................................17 X – Once more: Why HunyaDi?...................................................................................................18 XI – “Stoker, like Wilkinson, haDn’t a clue which Dracula was which”....................18 XII – The current sTaTe of debaTe.............................................................................................20 XIii – The “Fake fact paraDox”..................................................................................................21 xiV – In the WriTer’s kiTchen.......................................................................................................21 xV – Bram Stoker’s vampire trap.............................................................................................22 APPENDIX A: HOUSE OF BASARAB Genealogical oVerVieW....................................................26 APPENDIX B: Samuelson on HunniaDes and Vlad the Impaler..........................................27 APPENDIX C: The Balllad of Stephen THE GREAT’s flight TO NIAMTZ................................28 APPENDIX D: Alleged Link oF Queen EliZabeTh II oF England to Vlad the Impaler.....28 WORKS CITED OR DIscUssED, SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY..............................................................29 2 http://ep.liu.se/ea/cis/2012/002/ 16 March 2012 Hans C. de Roos: Bram Stoker’s Vampire Trap PUBLICATION DATA This paper is an expanded and updated version of an essay which will be published in April 2012 as part of the planned book: The Ultimate Dracula Moonlake Editions, Munich, ISBN Nr. 978-3-943559-00-2 Published on 16 March, 2012 Linköping Electronic Articles in by Linköping University Electronic Press Computer and Information Science 581 83 Linköping ISSN 1401-9841 Sweden Series editor: Erik Sandewall COPYRIGHT AND CITATION © 2012 Text, title photo montage and lay-out Hans Corneel de Roos, Munich, Germany. The Notes by Bram Stoker are property and © of the Rosenbach Museum & Library, Philadelphia. The photo of the trapdoor in the Adams Theatre is © http://rickety.us. The stills showing “The New Transported Man” were derived from the movie The Prestige, USA/UK, 2006, © Touchstone Pictures/Warner Bros./Syncopy Fims; they appear here by way of “Fair Use,” for review, research and educational purposes only. The same conditions apply for the use of this document, see below. All other images are believed to be in the Public Domain already. Recommended citation: <Author>. <Title>. Linköping electronic articles in computer and information science, Vol. 15 (2012): no. 2. http://www.ep.liu.se/ea/cis/2012/002/ March 16, 2012. This URL will also contain a link to the author’s home page. The publishers will keep this article on-line on the Internet (or its possible replacement network in the future) for a period of 25 years from the date of publication, barring exceptional circumstances as described separately. The on-line availability of the article implies a permanent permission for anyone to read the article on-line, to print out single copies of it, and to use it unchanged for any non-commercial research and educational purpose, including making copies for classroom use. This permission can not be revoked by subsequent transfers of copyright. All other uses of the article are conditional on the consent of the copyright owner. The publication of the article on the date stated above included also the production of a limited number of copies on paper, which were archived in Swedish university libraries like all other written works published in Sweden.The publisher has taken technical and administrative measures to assure that the on- line version of the article will be permanently accessible using the URL stated above, unchanged, and permanently equal to the archived printed copies at least until the expiration of the publication period. For additional information about the Linköping University Electronic Press and its procedures for publication and for assurance of document integrity, please refer to its WWW home page: http://www.ep.liu.se/ or by conventional mail to the address stated above. 3 http://ep.liu.se/ea/cis/2012/002/ 16 March 2012 Hans C. de Roos: Bram Stoker’s Vampire Trap DEDICATION This essay is dedicated to my old friend Kathinka Stel in Amsterdam, accomplishing independent literary research on the Durch poet Max de Jong; the mechanism by which Bram Stoker let his Voivoide Dracula suddenly disappear from the stage was first penned down on her birthday. AcKNOWLEDGEMENTS At this place I would like to thank all persons and institutions who supported me and my team while dealing with the Dracula subject since May 2010. This paper, like the Dracula Maps essay, is a spin-off of a much broader effort to visualise Bram Stoker’s famous novel. Special thanks is due to Karen Schoenewaldt and her colleagues at the Rosenbach Library & Museum, Philadelphia, who also answered my third request most friendly, and to my circle of proofreaders, especially MacGregor Buchanan and his daughter Seonaid. Should any error have remained, I am responsible for it as the author, of course. Last but not least to Peter Berkesand and Prof. Erik Sandewall at Linkoeping University Electronic Press, who enabled me to publish this paper, too, at short notice and to
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