Peter Haining – The Dracula Centenary Book (Souvenir Press, 1987)
Front jacket photograph courtesy UNIVERSAL PICTURES. Back jacket drawing by BRUCE WIGHTMAN jacket design by' BARFIELD ASSOCIATES
Acknowledgements
Dracula Lives!
An Amazing Story of Resurrection
The Birth of the Legend
The Bloodthirsty Parents of Dracula
Dracula by Day—and Other Misconceptions
The Count Who Won’t Lie Down
Playing the Master of the Undead
Tales of the Vampire Hunter
‘The Bloofer Ladies’
The Wurdalak Who Might Have Been Dracula
Appendices
Emily de Laszowska Gerard – Transylvanian Superstitions
A Checklist of Vampirism
Bela Lugosi – I Like Playing Dracula
The Dracula Films
Dr David H. Dolphin – Vampires — The Mystery Diagnosed
Dracula Societies
Blurb
One hundred years ago in the autumn of 1887, the most famous vampire of them all, Count Dracula, stalked from his castle in Transylvania to the streets of London. and started a legend that has endured and grown to epic proportions.
This book is published to celebrate not only that momentous event, but a number of other Dracula-related anniversaries also. It is seventy-five years since the death of Dracula’s brilliant creator, Bram Stoker, and ninety years since the publication of the original novel: 1987 also marks the centenary of the birth of Boris Karloff, the film star whose name is so closely associated with the vampire legend on the screen.
Dracula has become a twentieth century myth, extending his influence into all branches of the media. Stoker’s novel has never been out of print and has only been outsold by the Bible and the collected works of Shakespeare, but the story has also been adapted for the cinema, dramatised for the stage, radio and television. and spawned a whole series of books and films on the Dracula theme — not to mention a worldwide fascination with the subject of vampirism.
Profusely illustrated with photographs and prints, many of which have never before appeared in book form, The Dracula Centenary Book explores this extraordinary success story, drawing on much previously unpublished material. Following the recent discovery of the original manuscript of the novel, packed away and forgotten on a Pennsylvanian farm, and from studying the author’s working papers held in the Rosenbach Museum in Philadelphia, it is now possible to discover exactly how Bram Stoker developed and researched his book. The story of the growth of the screen cult is equally fascinating: the author includes interviews with the stars who have appeared in the major film versions over the past fifty years and a detailed listing of the films themselves.
There is also a chronology of famous real-life cases of vampirism from around the world.
Peter Haining is a recognised authority on supernatural literature and horror films. His enthusiasm and breadth of knowledge combine to make a book that is unputdownable.
PETER HAINING has been an avid student of horror, fantasy and the supernatural since boyhood, and has published many books on the subject, which have not only been widely successful but have made a valuable contribution to the literature on the genre. With his wife and three children, he lives in East Anglia
See also Vault’s Dracula Centenary Book thread
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