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WonderLiterary fact

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) is told through a collection of documents: diaries, letters, telegrams, a ship's log and newspaper cuttings. The characters themselves gather these papers to piece together the Count's plan.

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The story behind the card

Stoker (1847–1912) was an Irish writer who worked for many years as business manager of London's Lyceum Theatre for the actor Henry Irving. He researched the novel for several years, and his working notes are now held at the Rosenbach Museum in Philadelphia. Telling a story through documents is called the epistolary form, and reviewers compared the book with Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White (1859), which also uses several witnesses. Stoker filled it with the new technology of his day: Mina Harker takes notes in shorthand and types up everyone's accounts, and Dr Seward keeps his diary on a phonograph, an early sound recorder. Dracula himself has no diary or account of his own; apart from a few letters, readers see him only through the eyes of the people he threatens. The novel has never been out of print.

Türkçe oku
Bram Stoker'ın Drakula'sı (1897) tek bir anlatıcının ağzından değil, belgelerle anlatılır: günlükler, mektuplar, telgraflar, bir geminin seyir defteri ve gazete haberleri. Bu belgeleri, Kont'un planını çözmeye çalışan kahramanlar bir araya getirir.

İrlandalı yazar Stoker (1847–1912), uzun yıllar Londra'daki Lyceum Tiyatrosu'nda ünlü oyuncu Henry Irving'in işletme müdürü olarak çalıştı. Roman için birkaç yıl araştırma yaptı; çalışma notları bugün Philadelphia'daki Rosenbach Müzesi'nde saklanıyor. Hikâyeyi mektuplar ve belgelerle anlatan romanlara “mektup roman” denir; eleştirmenler kitabı, olayları birkaç tanığın ağzından aktaran Wilkie Collins'in Beyazlı Kadın'ıyla (1859) karşılaştırdı. Stoker romanı döneminin yeni teknolojileriyle donattı: Mina Harker notlarını stenoyla tutar ve herkesin anlattıklarını daktiloya çeker; Dr. Seward da günlüğünü fonografa, yani ilk ses kayıt aygıtlarından birine konuşarak tutar. Drakula'nın ise kendine ait bir günlüğü ya da anlatısı yoktur; birkaç mektup dışında okur onu yalnızca tehdit ettiği insanların gözünden görür. Roman, yayımlandığı günden bu yana baskıdan hiç kalkmadı.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Dracula
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