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Powers of Darkness

The title page from Dagen
Author	Bram Stoker, A—e (translator)
Language	Swedish
Genre	Horror, Gothic
Publisher	Harald Sohlman
Publication date	June 10, 1899 (1899-06-10)–February 7, 1900 (1900-02-07)
Publication place	Sweden
Pages	688
OCLC	971019732

Powers of Darkness (Mörkrets makter) is an anonymous 1899 Swedish version of Bram Stoker’s 1898 novel Dracula, serialised in the newspaper Dagen and credited only to Bram Stoker and the still-unidentified "A—e."

It is a variant or adaptation rather than a direct translation, with added characters, new plot elements and significant differences from the original. It served as the basis of a shorter Icelandic version under the same title the following year, which appeared as both a newspaper serial and a book.

Powers downplays the vampirism of Stoker’s novel and portrays Dracula primarily as the head of an international cult inspired by Social Darwinism, whose goal is elimination of the weakest and world domination by an elite.

It was long assumed to have been based on lost or unpublished elements of Stoker’s novel, such as preparatory notes and early drafts, but more recent research questions whether the translation is essentially a contemporary forgery, undertaken without Stoker’s knowledge or consent. In the twenty-first century, new academic research and a renewed interest in the variant has led to several new translations and editions.

Story

Like its source novel, Powers of Darkness is a Gothic horror story about an Englishman visiting a Transylvanian castle to arrange its aristocratic owner’s purchase of a new property in England.

Differences between Dracula and Powers of Darkness

Here the visitor is Thomas, Tom or Tómas Harker, rather than Jonathan, and Dracula becomes Draculitz. The early part of the story is similar to Stoker’s, but where Stoker’s Dracula lives alone, in Powers he shares his castle with a deaf-mute housekeeper and a cult of ape-like followers. Harker follows the housekeeper to a secret basement "temple," where he discovers the cult practising ritual sacrifice, but Draculitz does not drink the blood of their female victims; nor does he shapeshift, as in the original novel. In both Nordic variants Harker encounters a beautiful blonde woman in the castle, rather than the three vampire sisters, or brides, of Stoker’s book, and while he is repulsed by them in Dracula, and relieved to be rescued by the Count's interruption, in Powers he is attracted to her and continues secretly to meet with her, in disobedience of his host's instructions.

Once he has arrived in England, Draculitz appears often in public, chatting pleasantly with Mina (ere called Wilma or Vilma) and Lucy (called Western rather than Westenra) in the churchyard at Whitby, visiting Lucy when she is sick, and hosting a grand party with an international guest list at Carfax in London; Stoker’s Dracula remained mostly in the shadows. In Powers, Draculitz does not attack Mina, here called Wilma or Vilma. Instead, she joins Hawkins and two new characters—the detectives Edward Tellet and Barrington Jones—and together they take their investigation to Transylvania and Castle Dracula, assisted by the Hungarian Secret Police en route. Unlike in Dracula, Van Helsing and his allies remain in England, where they kill Draculitz on Mina and her party’s return.

Other new characters include Mina’s Uncle Morton and aristocrats called Prince Koromezzo, Countess Ida Varkony and Madame Saint Amand. The character of Renfield is not found in either Nordic version. Other original characters remain intact and are even among the vampires' victims: Holmwood and Seward die after falling prey to Lucy and Countess Vàrkony, respectively.

Reviewers and scholars alike have noted the more obvious eroticism of the Swedish and Icelandic Draculas: in the Guardian, critic Colin Fleming wrote that where Stoker’s sexual metaphors "serve deeper, dark concepts," Makt Myrkranna, "could have had the subtitle Lust in a Cape"; he notes Draculitz's preoccupation with female bosoms.

Social Darwinism and the Fin de Siècle

Draculitz not only has charge of the cult that gathers in his castle, but is known to correspond with international leaders, including English politicians and aristocrats, to engineer world domination. Several times he says that 'the world belongs to the strong' and protests that members of the elite have been suppressed by the majority for too long; his movement is growing, however, and will take over the world. His views reflect Social Darwinism, 'survival of the fittest' and the ideas of philosophers such as Nietzsche, as the growing fascist movement in Europe would increasingly interpret—or misinterpret—them.

Söhrman notes the suggestion that Dagen publisher Harald Sohlman may have had sympathy with these views, as in later life he rejected socialism and became more politically conservative (Elovson, 1953); the fact that Draculitz is the story's villain goes against this, however, and not only is the Count destroyed, but his international associates share his punishment, dying by murder and suicide. Berghorn describes Powers as a satire, warning against the turn-of-the-century theories that would lay the basis for Hitler's "master race." Powers references this zeitgeist directly when Seward quotes a contemporary tabloid:

By the way, the telegram section of the newspaper announces several strange news – lunatic behavior and deadly riots, organized by anti-Semites, in both Russia and Galicia as well as southern France – plundered stores, slain people – general insecurity of life and property – and the most fabulous tall tales about "ritual murders," abducted children and other unspeakable crimes, all of which is ascribed in earnestness to the poor Jews, while influential newspapers are instigating an all-encompassing extermination war against the "Israelites." You would think this is in the midst of the Dark Ages!

Along with rising fascism, the Fin de siècle saw a growth in new, esoteric religions, such as Theosophy and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and Berghorn likewise sees these movements satirized in the occult pagan rituals of Draculitz's cult.

The East End, Jack the Ripper and the Thames Torso Murders

Bloom has observed the prominent role that the then-notorious East End of London plays in Powers. At the end of the nineteenth century, the area, which Bloom describes as Britain's "wild frontier," was associated with poverty, disease and crime, especially prostitution. He argues that allusions in the text suggest the Scandinavian authors or translators wanted to link Draculitz with Victorian serial killer Jack the Ripper, whose murder spree took place in the Whitechapel district in 1888.

De Roos contends that the Ripper connection is based largely on Dalby's 1986 mistranslation of the Icelandic preface, in turn a shortened version of the Swedish preface. Where Dalby's version says that "the murders of Jack the Ripper ... came into the story a little later," De Roos corrects it to "the murders of Jack the Ripper ... happened a little later." In light of this revised timeline, De Roos sees a reference to the so-called Thames Torso Murders of 1887 in the following passage from Powers:

“Yes” – he said breathlessly and the fire virtually burned in his eyes, – “yes, these crimes, these terrible murders, these murdered women, these people found in sacks in the Thames, this blood, that flows, that flows and streams, while the murderer cannot be not found.”

Bloom—who, it must be noted, was commenting on the Icelandic text before the existence of its Swedish source was widely known—also observes similarities between the descriptions of Draculitz's female followers and the contemporary stereotype of the "exotic" Ashkenazi Jewish prostitutes whose dark complexions and perceived voluptuousness made them popular with East End pimps.

Publication History

Mörkrets makter (Sweden)

Mörkrets makter was first published as a serial in the Stockholm newspaper Dagen, from 10 June 1899 to 7 February 1900. A second serialisation followed between 6 August 1899 and 31 March 1900 in the twice-weekly Aftonbladets Halfvecko-Upplaga, a rural tabloid edition of Dagen’s national sister-paper Aftonbladet. While the Dagen variant was almost twice as long as Stoker’s novel—300,000 words compared to 160,000—this second variant had a shortened ending and came to just 107,000 words. The longer Dagen version was republished in the popular magazine Tip-Top between 1916 and 1918.

Makt myrkranna (Iceland)

The Icelandic serial, Makt myrkranna, appeared in the Reykjavik newspaper Fjallkonan from January 1900 to March 1901. Later in 1901 it was published as a book under Stoker's name, with the translation credited to Valdimar Ásmundsson and publication simply to "Nokkrir Prentarar," which means "various publishers." It was a shortened the Aftonbladet variant drastically to 47,000 words and added references to Icelandic sagas. Where Mörkrets had retained the epistolary format of Stoker's novel throughout, Makt dispenses with it after the Transylvanian section.

Only one, very negative contemporary review of Makt myrkranna is known, in which Benedikt Björnsson described it as " worthless rubbish and sometimes even worse than worthless, completely devoid of poetry and beauty and far removed from any psychological truth."

Nevertheless Makt took on such cultural importance in its native country that in the twentieth century, Makt myrkranna became the standard Icelandic way to refer to the Dracula myth in film and literature, and the book was popular enough to warrant republication in 1950 by Hogni. Nobel literary laureate Halldór Laxness later praised it as "one of the best Icelandic novels imported from abroad."

Rediscovery, Reprints and Translations

The Icelandic Makt myrkranna came to worldwide attention in 1986, when American scholar Richard Dalby published an English translation of the preface, supposed at that time to have been written by Bram Stoker himself. He also supposed the entire text, in its published book form of 1901, to be a simple abridgement of Dracula and the first foreign translation of Stoker’s text. All these assumptions turned out to be questionable or completely wrong: the first foreign translation was in Hungarian in 1898; the preface was almost certainly not Stoker, and part of it was likely plagiarised from another source; and it was a shortened, modified and translated version of a Swedish text that was itself a variant, with additions alongside portions translated from Stoker.

This last fact was unknown until Hans Corneel de Roos had published his English translation of Makt myrkranna under the title Powers of Darkness: The Lost Version of Dracula in 2017. His work on both the research and translation earned him a Lord Ruthven Special Award. Swedish publisher Rickard Berghorn contacted De Roos immediately after publication to inform him of the existence of Mörkrets makter, whose similarities and earlier date confirmed it was the source of the Icelandic text. He subsequently republished the original Swedish text, as first seen in Dagen.

In 2022, William Trimble edited a new English translation, produced by proofreading the OCR-read Swedish manuscript, then running it through two automated translation programs, before having the results refined by a human Swedish translator and two English editors (Trimble 2022, editor's preface). It was published alongside essays by Roos and other Dracula scholars. The cover bore a direct translation of the original title page: "Powers of Darkness, by Bram Stoker, Swedish adaptation by A—e." Shortly afterwards in the same year, native Swedish speaker Rickard Berghorn published his own translation as Powers of Darkness: The Unique Version of Dracula. It was published with a new introductory essay by the translator and, for the hardback edition only, a foreword by Professor Clive Bloom. Both the Trimble and Berghorns editions reproduced original illustrations by Emil Åberg, which De Roos also published in a separate volume, Dracula: The Swedish Drawings (1899-1900). A newly illustrated edition of the Berghorn translation, limited to 500 copies and with a foreword by Dacre Stoker, will be published by Centipede Press as Powers of Darkness: The First Dracula later in 2022.

Authorship and Sources

Before 2017, scholars commonly assumed that Powers of Darkness was based primarily on Stoker's own work, being either translated directly from Dracula or based on his preparatory notes and early drafts. Once it became clear that the Swedish Mörkrets makter predated and served as the source of the Icelandic Makt myrkranna, scholarly consensus gradually came to cast doubt on Stoker's involvement (De Roos 2021).

Identity of A—e

The 1899 newspaper serial identifies the story as an "adaptation" (Swedish bearbetning), rather than a translation, per se, by someone called "A—e."

Early suggestions that the initials are connected to Valdimar Ásmundsson, credited with Makt myrkranna, must now be rejected, as later research has proved that the Swedish variant predated the Icelandic.

Berghorn quickly dismissed De Roos's suggestion that it stood for "Aftonbladets editor," as the Swedish for "editor" would be redaktör. More recently, De Roos has proposed the initials stand for Albert Andersson-Edenberg (1834-1913), a senior journalist and associate of Dagen editor Sohlman who wrote under pseudonyms including "A.-E.," "A.E." and "A.E-g." and had occasionally translated from English. He bolsters his argument by identifying peculiar phrases used in both Powers and in Andersson-Edenberg's published works, such as “true Valkyries from the Bavarian highlands." Berghorn had earlier dismissed some of De Roos's examples of similarities as coincidence.

Stoker's Involvement

Researchers have proposed various ways Stoker himself could have been involved in the creation of Powers. Early on in the study of Makt myrkranna, De Roos, unaware of the text's earlier Swedish source, identified several similarities between it and Bram Stoker’s notes, such as a “secret room—coloured like blood” and the characters of the silent housekeeper and a police inspector (De Roos, 2014). De Roos suggests several ways Icelandic translator Valdimar Ássmundsson may have been introduced to the Dracula author, including through mutual literary friends such as Mark Twain, Hall Caine and Frederic WH Myers, but he otherwise finds no evidence of correspondence between Ássmundsson and Stoker (De Roos, 2014).Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). the "flowery style" and the character of Countess Dolingen of Gratz are named, among other similarities. Berghorn qualifies his claims, however, pointing to references in Powers to current events (antisemitic riots in France, the so-called Orlean conspiracy) and technology (the cinematograph) that would have to post-date any proposed early draft by Stoker, and therefore must have originated with the Nordic authors.<ref= name="De Roos 2022"></ref>

The allusions in Powers to Jack the Ripper and the Thames Torso Murders, both in the preface and in the story itself, have also been offered as evidence of Stoker's involvement. How would a Scandinavian author or translator have known of the latter incidents? De Roos counters this theory: While not widely reported in Sweden, the Thames murders did receive some attention in the Scandinavian press, and a journalist such as Andersson-Edenberg, would have had access to British newspapers. Stockholm's newsrooms, such as those of Dagen, received the London Times and Telegraph daily by telegraph, for example.

Forgery

In his 2016 biography of Bram Stoker, Skal describes Powers of Darkness as "unauthorized fan fiction." In their 2020 article "Dracula or Draculitz?" Brundan et al take this notion further, arguing that the nineteenth-century public's insatiable appetite for vampire literature meant that the practices of writers and publishers were themselves a kind of vampirism, appropriating earlier literature the way Dracula appropriated human bodies. The Victorian vampire genre, therefore, is uniquely characterised by fraud, forgery and plagiarism. Citing earlier Dracula scholars such as Pope, Radick and Wycke, they demonstrate that Stoker himself borrowed considerably from earlier vampire stories, including Karl von Wachsmann’s Der Fremde (The Stranger). Even the story within the story includes fabrication and deception, and contains several hints at the unreliability of supposedly authentic documentary evidence: Dracula destroys the primary evidence by burning documents, for example, so many of the very texts held up as proof of the tale within the story are necessarily copies.

Insofar as they claim to be translations, the two Nordic versions of Powers of Darkness are forgeries. Not only do they falsely attribute authorship to Stoker and contain fraudulent prefaces, but they also borrow liberally from other writing, including Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla and Edgar Allan Poe's The Masque of the Red Death and The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar.

Preface and Plagiarism from Bernhard Wadström's Memoirs

In 1986, Richard Dalby was the first to draw attention to the preface outside the Scandinavian countries, translating the Icelandic version into English for the first time (Dalby 1986). It is attributed directly to Bram Stoker and presents the story as a reliable report of real events, but with names changed to protect identities. The Icelandic version ends with the quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet: "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." The Swedish preface contains several more lines, however, which De Roos discovered were taken almost word-for-word from the memoirs of a Lutheran pastor, Bernhard Wadström, published in Sweden three months before Mörkrets makter.

Other elements of Powers contain traces of Wadström's influence, including the appearance of the "White Lady" and the fiery sky being viewed from a top-floor gallery. De Roos deems this as further evidence that Stoker was not involved in or even aware of the Swedish text, as it's unlikely he would have borrowed ideas from a Swedish publication.

Similarities with Stoker's preparatory notes for Dracula

Already in his first essay on Makt myrkranna, De Roos noted a number of parallels between the Icelandic plot and Stoker's preparatory notes for Dracula. Some of these early ideas, such as an evening party with the Count entering as the last guest, the use of a “secret room – coloured like blood,” the appearance of a silent housekeeper woman, or the active role of a police inspector, did not appear in the published version of Dracula. If Ásmundsson had not invented such ideas by himself, he only could have learned about them if Stoker had shared his early ideas for the plot with him.

In his blog entry of 15 February 2017, Jason Colavito questioned whether these similarities actually evidenced that Stoker provided an early draft as a basis for an Icelandic (read: Swedish) adaptation.

The Icelandic preface

The translation of the Icelandic preface by Joel H. Emerson, published by Richard Dalby in 1986 and again in 1993, over the years has caught the attention of several Dracula scholars, especially as it seemed to suggest a link with the Ripper murders.

“But the events are incontrovertible, and so many people know of them that they cannot be denied. This series of crimes has not yet passed from the memory -- a series of crimes which appear to have originated from the same source, and which at the same time created as much repugnance in people everywhere as the murders of Jack the Ripper, which came into the story a little later. Various people’s minds will go back to the remarkable group of foreigners who for many seasons together played a dazzling part in the life of the aristocracy here in London; and some will remember that one of them disappeared suddenly without apparent reason, leaving no trace.”

Emerson's rendering suggests that Jack the Ripper will actually play a role in the Icelandic story. And as Makt myrkranna was believed to be an abridged translation of Dracula, some readers started looking for (concealed) appearances of the Ripper in the original text of Dracula, and other links between Bram Stoker and the Whitechapel murders of 1888. De Roos's essay of February 2014 established that Emerson's translation was incorrect: the Icelandic text indicated that the Ripper Murders "happened a little later", that is, later than "his series of crimes has not yet passed from the memory." As the Count in his conversations with Harker later mentions "these murdered women, these people found in sacks in the Thames," De Roos suspect that "his series of crimes has not yet passed from the memory" refers to the unsolved Thames Torso Murders of 1887-89, that started somewhat earlier than the Whitechapel homicide spree.

In his introduction to Powers of Darkness (2017), De Roos addressed a number of other errors in the Emerson/Dalby translation.

The anonymous Swedish editor/translator

Directly under the title, both the Dagen and the Halfvecko-Upplaga variants present the story as a "novel by Bram Stoker," then explicate that it is a "Swedish adaptation by A—e." To understand how Dracula came to Sweden and what role Stoker actually played in the creation of the Swedish variants, identifying "A—e" is a crucial step. As a "first guess," De Roos in his correspondence with Berghorn suggested that "A—e" might stand for "Aftonbladets editor," that is, Harald Sohlman. Berghorn objected that the Swedish word for "editor" is redaktör. A few weeks later, De Roos followed up with an interview in Vampirisme.com, in which he proposed Anders Albert Andersson-Edenberg (1834-1913), a senior journalist and drama translator who cooperated with Harald Sohlman within the framework of Publicistklubben, the Swedish Publicists' Association; he frequently used the pseunonym "A.-E." During the course of 2017, De Roos published around two dozen similarities between Mörkrets makter and articles Andersson-Edenberg had previously published in Svenska Familj Journalen. In Spring 2018, De Roos summarized his findings on Andersson-Edenberg in the online magazine Vamped.org.

Who wrote Mörkrets makter? The "early draft" thesis

In his 2014 essay, De Roos was the first to note the parallels between Makt myrkranna and Stoker's early notes. In this 2014 essay and in his introduction to the annotated translation, he extensively discussed the chance that Ásmundsson had radically modified Dracula, possibly even without Stoker's consent. But as the Icelandic preface showed traces of a translation from another language, these essays finally supported the idea that at least the preface had been supplied by Stoker, while Ásmundsson may have had a hand in modifying and shortening the narrative. Even after the link with Mörkrets makter had become evident, De Roos writes, the Icelandic prefaces continues to contain some riddles, now regarding the role of the Swedish translator/editor: How could "A—e" have learned about the Thames Torso Murders, that were hardly mentioned in the Swedish press? Why did "A—e" single Van Helsing out as a "real person," just as Stoker had done in his interview with Jane Stoddart? Why would "A—e" have used a Hamlet quote - a stage play Stoker knew by heart?

David Skal's support for the "early draft" thesis

Echoing De Roos's discovery of parallels between Makt myrkranna and Stoker's early notes, Stoker biographer David J. Skal mentioned that Stoker's notes list the character of a police inspector. As no such police inspector is featured in Dracula, the translator could have only learned about him from using an early draft of Dracula as his source, Skal claimed. Similarly, he believed the Count's deaf and mute housekeeper to be taken from such a draft. Though Skal was speaking about the Icelandic translator Ásmundsson, the plot elements are found in all three Nordic variants, and raise the question whether "A—e," the Swedish translator, was familiar with Stoker's early ideas for the plot, or even had received an early draft from England.

The relationship with Dracula's Guest

In his analysis of December 2017, Berghorn pointed to the short story Dracula's Guest (published posthumously in 1914), claiming that Dracula's Guest originally was a chapter from Dracula, but was removed from the final draft. Although this theory is disputed, Berghorn adopted the idea that Mörkrets makter was based upon an abandoned early draft of Dracula. Especially, he believed that the mysterious blond vampire girl from Mörkrets makter/Makt myrkranna is based on the Countess Dolingen of Gratz, and on the blonde vampire bride from Dracula. He further argues that the ornate, flowery style of Dracula's Guest, written in 1892, resembles more closely the style of Mörkrets makter than that of Dracula. He concludes that Mörkrets makter was based upon a draft Stoker may have written in the early 1890s. The argument of a "flowery style," however, might well apply to the rather verbose Dagen version, but does not fit the shortened Halfvecko-Upplaga variant.

The "early draft" thesis and chronological arguments

Berghhorn further proposed that "A—e" modified Stoker's text as he or she translated it, and noted that Stoker picked the names for his main characters already between 1890–92; the same names, with minimal variations, appear in Mörkrets makter. Berghorn also noted that in the account of the black mass and human sacrifice performed by Draculitz in Mörkrets makter, the scene is described as being lit by flames similar to the flickering lights of a cinematograph, the first film projector only invented in 1895 and not used commercially until 1896. On chronological grounds, Berghorn felt that the reference to a cinematograph was added in by "A—e" rather being based upon an early draft by Stoker from the early 1890s. Along the same lines, he concluded that several topical political references in Mörkrets makter such as the anti-Semitic riots in France caused by the Dreyfus affair; the Franco-Russian alliance, which was signed in 1894; and the 1898 "Orlean" conspiracy" for a royalist coup de etat in France must have been the work of "A—e". Other elements of Mörkrets makter, according to Berghorn, must have been come from Stoker himself, such as the highly favorable references to William Ewart Gladstone, who was Stoker's political hero. As to how an early draft of Dracula might have ended up in Sweden, Berghorn presented his "very strong working hypothesis" that the writer Anne Charlotte Leffler and her mathematician brother Gösta Mittag-Leffler, both of whom were friends of the Stoker family, had "something to do with it."

To further support his theory, Berghorn copied the parallels with Stoker's early notes, as first worded by De Roos, to his own his essay of November 2017, adding a further example regarding Lucy's brooch.

Dracula's connection with the London East End

In his book chapter "Dracula and the Psychic World of the East End of London," Clive Bloom noted that the Dracula of Makt myrkranna is more closely associated with the East End of London than he is in Dracula, which he argued was meant to link the Count to Jack the Ripper, and to the East End as a "wild frontier" region of Britain. In the Victorian era, the East End was a center of poverty, disease and crime, especially prostitution. Given the preexisting popular image of the East End as a place of crime and sexual depravity, the "Jack the Ripper" murders of 1888 with five prostitutes gruesomely murdered caught the public's imagination as a symbol of "sexual danger" associated with London and above all the East End.

Bloom also noted that the popular descriptions of the exotic "Oriental" Ashkenazi Jewish prostitutes from Eastern Europe, whose "voluptuousness" and dark looks made them popular with johns on the East End, matched the descriptions of the Count's female followers in both Makt myrkranna and Dracula. Bloom further argued that the description of the eroticism of Lucy after she is turned into a vampire by Dracula in both Dracula and even more so in Makt Myrkranna closely resembled the descriptions of the eroticism of the stereotype of the exotic "Oriental" Jewish prostitute found in contemporary Victorian accounts.

Still unaware of the "Swedish connection" at the time he wrote his book contribution, Bloom argued that the way in which Makt Myrkranna echoed British fears and fascination with the "frontier" of the East End supports the "early draft" theory. In his eyes, it was unlikely that an Icelander like Ásmundsson would have been as interested in the East End as Stoker was.

Newest developments: parts of the Swedish preface plagiarized from the memoirs of a pastor

In May 2018, De Roos set out to create an English and German translation of the Swedish preface, which - unlike the Icelandic preface - continued after the Hamlet quote. He discovered that especially the last part, omitted from Makt myrkranna, was almost literally copied from the memoirs of a Lutheran pastor, Bernhard Wadström. This part of his memoirs had been released in March 1899, three months before the preface to Mörkrets makter appeared in Dagen. Furthermore, De Roos identified various elements in the main text of Mörkrets makter that seemed to be inspired by Wadström's memoirs, such as the appearance of a "White Lady" and the viewing of a fiery sky from a gallery placed on the top floor. As De Roos deems it highly improbable that Bram Stoker himself would have inserted these elements from a Swedish publication, or would have consented to such a plagiarism, he raises severe doubts whether Bram Stoker ever was aware of the Swedish serializations. Based on this discovery and the similarities with Andersson-Edenberg's articles in Svensk Familj Journalen, he now is open to the possibility that Mörkrets makter was an unauthorized production, with its own literary qualities.

In various essays since October 2018, De Roos outlined the possible links between the Hungarian, the Swedish and the US newspaper serializations, based on an analysis of growing international press cooperation in the 1890s.

Awards

In 2018, Hans Corneel de Roos received Special Recognition Award from the Lord Ruthven Awards for his translation and scholarly research for Powers of Darkness: The Lost Version of Dracula.

Translations from Swedish

In June 2020, Centipede Press announced it had prepared a translation by Rickhard Berghorn, edited by S. T. Joshi and Martin Andersson, and was waiting for the right time to market it. Centipede announced that it would be available for order in late April 2022. Hans de Roos published Dracula: the Swedish Drawings (1899–1900) in 2021, containing 56 illustrations from Dagen, most of which he restored and colorized, and translations from the Swedish of paragraphs describing the drawings. A translation of the long Swedish variant appeared in February 2022, and its editor claims to have identified the illustrator of the drawings which accompanied Mörkrets makter as Emil Åberg. A translation into Portuguese has been announced from publishers Ex Machina and Sebo Clepsidra.)

References

Citations

1. ^ De Roos, Hans (2017). Powers of Darkness: The Lost Version of Dracula.
2. ^ Trimble, William (2022). Powers of Darkness.
3. ^ Template:Cite article
4. Fleming, Colin (19 April 2017). "The Icelandic Dracula: Bram Stoker's vampire takes a second bite". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 6 September 2019. Retrieved 2019-09-02.
5. ^ Berghorn, Rickard (November 2017). "Dracula's Way to Sweden". Weird Webzine. Retrieved 20 April 2022.
6. ^ Bloom, Clive (2018). Dracula - An International Perspective. London: Palgrave Gothic. pp. 124–125.
7. ^ De Roos, Hans Cornel (2021). "Mörkrets Makter's Mini-Mysteries". Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov. Series IV: Philology and Cultural Studies, 14(63) (1).
8. From "Nokkur orð um bókmentir vorar," in Skírnir, 1 December 1906: 344 and 346. Translated from the Icelandic by Hans Corneel de Roos. Quoted from De Roos, Hans Corneel. Introduction to Powers of Darkness. New York: Overlook, 2017: 21.
9. "2018 Lord Ruthven Awards". File770.com. 19 March 2018.
10. Trimble, William (2022). Powers of Darkness.
11. Stoker, Bram (2022). Berghorn, Rickhard (ed.). Powers of Darkness:the first Dracula. Centipede Press. ISBN 9781613472743.
12. de Roos, Hans (2021). Dracula: the Swedish Drawings (1899–1900). Pfaffenhofen/Obo-ob: Rainbow Village/Moonlake Editions. ISBN 9783943559019.
13. "Powers of Darkness". centipedepress.com. Centipede Press. Retrieved 22 April 2022.
14. ^ Skal, David (2016). Something in the Blood. New York: Liveright/Norton.
15. De Roos, Hans Corneel (4 February 2014). "Makt Myrkranna – Mother of All Dracula Modifications?". Letter from Castle Dracula.
16. Cite error: The named reference De Roos 2020 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
17. ^ "Dracula or Draculitz?: Translational Forgery and Bram Stoker's "Lost Version" of Dracula". Victorian Review. 45 (2): 293–306. 2019. doi:10.1353/vcr.2019.0060. S2CID 220495531. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)
18. Dalby, Richard (1986). A Bram Stoker Omnibus Edition: Dracula and The Lair of the White Worm. London: Foulsham.
19. De Roos, Hans Corneel (26 May 2016). "Was the Preface to the Swedish Dracula Written by a Priest?". Vamped. Retrieved 2019-09-02.
20. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
21. Eighteen-Bisang, Robert; Miller,Elizabeth, eds. (2008). Bram Stoker's Notes for Dracula - A Facsimile Edition. Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland. ISBN 9780786434107.
22. Colavita, Jason (15 February 2017). "Why the Icelandic "Dracula" Adaptation Is Probably Not Evidence for a Lost Original Version of Bram Stoker's Classic Vampire Novel". Jason Colavito Blog.
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26. Email from De Roos to Berghorn, 3 March 2017
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28. De Roos, Hans Corneel (27 March 2017). "Corneel de Roos, Hans. Interview avec le (re-)découvreur de Powers of Darkness [addendum". Vampirisme.com.
29. De Roos, Hans Corneel (1 April 2017). "Graaf Dracula als de Nieuwe Cagliostro – De Hoofdredactie in Gesprek met Hans Corneel de Roos". T'is Fris: 1–9.
30. De Roos, Hans Corneel (April 2017). "The Origin of the First Dracula Adaptation". Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov, Series IV: Philology and Cultural Studies. 10: 131–146.
31. De Roos, Hans Corneel (26 March 2018). "Was Albert Anders Andersson-Edenberg the First Author to Modify Dracula?" (PDF). Vamped.org.
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34. Skal, David (2016). Something in the Blood. New York: Liveright/Norton. p. 338.
35. ^ Bloom, Clive (2018). Dracula - An International Perspective. London: Palgrave Gothic. pp. 124–125.
36. Walkowitz, Judith (1992). City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London. Univ. of Chicago Press. pp. 81–83.
37. Walkowitz, Judith (1992). City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press. pp. 2–3.
38. De Roos, Hans Corneel (26 May 2016). "Was the Preface to the Swedish Dracula Written by a Priest?". Vamped. Retrieved 2019-09-02.
39. De Roos, Hans Corneel. "Early Serializations and Translations of Dracula, and the Internationalization of the Press 1890–1900. Keynote presentation at the Children of the Night International Dracula Conference, Brașov, Romania, October 2018.
40. "2018 Lord Ruthven Awards". File770.com. 19 March 2018.
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43. de Roos, Hans (2021). Dracula: the Swedish Drawings (1899–1900). Pfaffenhofen/Obo-ob: Rainbow Village/Moonlake Editions. ISBN 9783943559019.
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Bibliography

• Berni, Simone Dracula by Bram Stoker The Mystery of The Early Editions, Morrisville: Lulu, 2016, ISBN 1326621793.
• Bloom, Clive "Dracula and the Psychic World of the East End of London" pages 119-139 from Dracula: An International Perspective, New York: Springer, 2017, ISBN 9783319633664.
• Crișan, Marius-Mircea "Welcome to My House: Enter Freely of your own will": Dracula in International Contexts" pages 1–21 from Dracula: An International Perspective, New York: Springer, 2017, ISBN 9783319633664.
• De Roos, Hans Corneel "Count Dracula's Address and Lifetime Identity" pages 95–118 from Dracula: An International Perspective, New York: Springer, 2017, ISBN 9783319633664.
• Skal, David Something in the Blood: The Untold Story of Bram Stoker, the Man Who Wrote Dracula, New York: Liveright, 2016, ISBN 1631490109.
• Stedman Jones, Gareth Outcast London: A Study in the Relationship Between Classes in Victorian Society, London: Verso, 1971, ISBN 1781680124
• Walkowitz Judith R. The City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992 ISBN 9780226081014

External links

• Mörkrets makter (in Swedish) – 1900 Aftonbladets Halfvecko-Upplaga version, at the Royal Library of Sweden.
• Makt myrkranna (in Icelandic) – via Project Runeberg.
• Powers of Darkness – website created by researcher Hans Corneel de Roos.
• Mörkrets Makter (in Swedish) 1899–1900 Dagen version from Kungliga biblioteket

• 1901 novels
• Dracula novels
• Novels first published in serial form
• Vampire novels
• Works based on British novels