Anno Dracula (51 page)

The title comes from Richard Connell’s often-reprinted and filmed short story, as does that ‘Russian with the Tartar warbow’.

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY
F
IVE
: D
RINK
, P
RETTY
C
REATURE
, D
RINK

The
chapter title
comes from ‘The Pet Lamb: A Pastoral’, by William Wordsworth.

Dr Ravna. The supercilious, chilly vampire patriarch played by Noel Willman in Hammer’s
The Kiss of the Vampire
.

C
HAPTER
F
IFTY
S
EVEN
: T
HE
H
OME
L
IFE OF
O
UR
O
WN
D
EAR
Q
UEEN

The
chapter title
comes from a (probably apocryphal) statement usually attributed to one of Queen Victoria’s ladies-in-waiting upon seeing Sarah Bernhardt as Cleopatra in
Antony and Cleopatra
. ‘How very different from the home life of our own dear Queen.’

The armadillo. In one of the oddest moments in Tod Browning’s
Dracula
(1931), an armadillo is seen among the vermin inhabiting Castle Dracula in Transylvania. Yes, armadillos are native to the Americas and highly unlikely residents of Romania. Personally, I don’t think this an error on the part of the filmmakers, but a sign of
wrongness
– creepier somehow than the attempt at depicting a giant insect (a regular-sized bug on a miniature set) made in the same sequence. So, here’s that armadillo again.

Countess Barbara de Cilly (c. 1390-1452). Holy Roman Empress, Queen Consort of Hungary and Bohemia, known as ‘the Messalina of Germany’. She was instrumental in founding the Order of the Dragon, which is where Dracula got his title from. Her descendants include all the Royal Houses of Europe. Besides the scheming and treachery inherent in holding offices like Holy Roman Empress, she spent her last days – after an inevitable ousting from power – studying alchemy and the occult. Some sources suggest her as the real-life model for LeFanu’s Carmilla, but she’s figured surprisingly rarely in vampire fiction.

‘sword-point darting like a dragonfly’. Thanks to Helen Simpson, the original copy-editor of
Anno Dracula
, for knowing what I meant, even though the manuscript said ‘darting like a snapdragon’. Helen fixed many of my other brain-freeze moments.

Of course, this novel would not exist without Bram Stoker’s 1897
Dracula.
So he should get the lion’s share of the credit for establishing an entire category of vampire fiction. In taking hold of the material Stoker laid down, I must also acknowledge a debt to many scholars. Most often consulted were Leonard Wolf’s
The Annotated Dracula
and Christopher Frayling’s
Vampyres: Lord Byron to Count Dracula,
which point out many of the byways I found myself exploring, but I should not care to underestimate Basil Copper’s
The Vampire in Legend, Fact and Art,
Richard Dalby’s
Dracula’s Brood,
Daniel Farson’s
The Man Who Wrote Dracula,
Donald F. Glut’s
The Dracula Book,
Peter Haining’s
The Dracula Centenary Book,
Raymond T. McNally and Radu R. Florescu’s
In Search of Dracula,
Michel Parry’s
The Rivals of Dracula,
Barry Pattison’s
The Seal of Dracula,
David Pirie’s
The Vampire Cinema,
Alan Ryan’s
The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories,
Alain Silver and James Ursini’s
The Vampire Film,
David J. Skal’s
Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web of Dracula from Novel to Stage to Screen
and Gregory Waller’s
The Living and the Un-dead.

In addition, for numerous historical, literary and frivolous details, I must credit W.S. Baring-Gould’s
Sherlock Holmes: A Biography
and
The Annotated Sherlock Holmes,
Paul Begg, Martin Fido and Keith
Skinner’s invaluable
The Jack the Ripper A to Z
, Richard Ellman’s
Oscar Wilde
, Philip José Farmer’s
Tarzan Alive
and
Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life
, Andrew Goodman’s
Gilbert and Sullivan’s London
, Steve Gooch’s translation of
The Lulu Plays of Frank Wedekind
, Melvin Harris’s
The Ripper File
, Michael Harrison’s
The World of Sherlock Holmes
, Beth Kalikoff ’s
Murder and Moral Decay in Victorian Popular Literature
, Laurence Lerner’s
The Victorians
, Norman and Jeanne Mackenzie’s
The Time Traveller: The Life of H.G. Wells
, Sally Mitchell’s
Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia
(especially useful in the pre-internet days for information on lots of things), Arthur Morrison’s
A Child of the Jago
(with a biographical study by P.J. Keating) and David Pringle’s
Imaginary People: A Who’s Who of Modern Fictional Characters
. Among the friendly eyes who glanced over the manuscript in various forms, I should like to credit Eugene Byrne, for his detailed historical carping, Steve Jones, Antony Harwood, Lucy Parsons and Maureen Waller.

I have to mention various people who happened to be nice to me during the composition of this novel, subtly influencing the text through late-night phone calls, freely-given answers to bizarre questions, increasingly deranged dinner conversations in peculiar locales, and general pleasant enthusiasm. In particular, Susan Byrne eased me through difficulties round about
Chapter 14
. Also, thanks to Julie Akhurst, Pete Atkins, Clive Barker (for the afternoon when I drunkenly complained about the length of
Imajica
), Saskia Baron, Clive Bennett, Anne Billson (
Suckers
), Steve Bissette, Peter Bleach, Scott Bradfield, Monique Brocklesby (more blood, more blood), John Brosnan, Molly Brown (
Chapter 47
!), Allan Bryce, Mark Burman, Ramsey Campbell, Jonathan Carroll, Kent Carroll, Dave Carson (yer man), Tom Charity, Steve Coram, Jeremy Clarke, John and Judith Clute (more paronomasia, now!), Lynne Cramer, David
Cross, Stuart Crosskell, Colin Davis, Meg Davis, Phil Day, Elaine di Campo, Wayne Drew, Alex Dunn, Malcolm and Jax Edwards, Chris Evans, Richard Evans, Dennis and Kris Etchison, Tom FitzGerald, Jo Fletcher, Nigel Floyd, Christopher Fowler, Barry Forshaw, Adrian and Ann Fraser, Neil Gaiman, Kathy Gale (Nodding Dog, Nodding Dog), Steve Gallagher, David Garnett, Lisa Gaye, John Gilbert (for the afternoon when I drunkenly complained about not being paid), Charlie Grant, Colin Greenland, Beth Gwinn, Rob Hackwill, Guy Hancock, Phil Hardy (Crouch End Luncheon Society), Louise Hartley-Davies, Elizabeth Hickling, Susannah Hickling, Rob Holdstock, David Howe, Simon Ings, Peter James, Stefan Jaworzyn, Trevor Johnstone, Alan Jones, Rodney Jones, Graham Joyce (Endless Evil in Leicester), Roz Kaveney, Joanna Kaye (one of the slim dark ones), Leroy Kettle, Mark Kermode (sorry, no Linda Blair), Roz Kidd (for an interesting afternoon in Islington), Alexander Korzhenevski, Karen Krizanovich (cute nose), Andy Lane (background on the Limehouse Ring), Joe Lansdale, Stephen Laws (who’d certainly drink at the Ten Bells), Christopher Lee (and Gitte, for two weeks in another town), Amanda Lipman, Paul McAuley (Partner in Many Crimes), Dave McKean, Tim Mander, Nigel Matheson, Mark Morris, Alan Morrison (and Gowan, for getting me on a train), Cindy Moul (kisses), Dermot Murnaghan (for George Formby), Sasha Newman, David Newton, Terry Pratchett, Steve Roe, David Roper, Jonathan Ross, Nick Royle, Geoff Ryman, Clare Saxby, Trevor Showler, Adrian Sibley, Dave Simpson, Dean Skilton, Skipp ’n’ Spector, Brian Smedley, Brian Stableford, Janet Storey (sort of), Dave and Danuta Tamlyn, Tom Tunney (Madeline Smith’s Greatest Admirer), Lisa Tuttle, Alexia Vernon, Karl Edward Wagner, Howard Waldrop (I’m not worthy!), Mike and Di Wathen,
Sue Webster, Chris Wicking, F. Paul Wilson, Doug Winter, Miranda Wood, John Wrathall and all the murgatroyds.

For this new edition, the list must be extended – and will be even further as the follow-up books appear. For now, I’ll mention Nicolas Barbano, David Barraclough, Jennifer Brehl, Sophie Calder, Billy Chainsaw, Ron Chetwynd-Hayes, Paul Cornell, John Douglas, Martina Drnkova, Robert Eighteen-Bisang, Sloan Freer, Tony Gardner, Mark Gatiss, Paula Grainger, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Leslie S. Klinger, Nick Landau, James Macdonald Lockhart, Tim Lucas, Maura McHugh, China Miéville, Helen Mullane, Sarah Pinborough, Chris Roberson, David J. Schow, Silja Semple, Michael Marshall Smith and Cath Trechman.

To everyone, thanks.

Kim Newman, Islington, 2010

When I was eleven years old, my parents let me stay up past my bed-time to watch the 1931 Tod Browning-Bela Lugosi version of
Dracula
on television. I can’t overestimate the effect this has had on the subsequent course of my life, since the film was the spark which lit the flames of my interests in horror
and
cinema. I was captivated by
Dracula
, and became an obsessive in the way only an eleven-year-old can be obsessive. I think my parents expected the craze to wear off, but obviously it never did. Among my first attempts at writing was a one-page play, based on the film, which I typed, starred in, and directed in drama class at Dr Morgan’s Grammar School in Autumn, 1970. Mercifully, this juvenilia has been lost. Shortly afterwards, I read (and reread) Bram Stoker’s novel, and went out of my way to catch as many Dracula movies as possible. I had the Aurora glow-in-the-dark hobby kit (‘Frightning Lightning Strikes!’) of Lugosi as the Count, and began to collect other novels (far fewer then than there are now) which sequelised, imitated, parodied or ripped off the character. When I happened to return to the building which had been Dr Morgan’s assembly hall in February 1989, the stage was set for that year’s school play,
Dracula
, which I regarded as a personal vindication.

Here’s how
Anno Dracula
evolved. At Sussex University in 1978, I took a course entitled Late Victorian Revolt, taught by the poet Laurence Lerner and Norman Mackenzie (Wells’s biographer), for which I wrote a thesis (‘The Secular Apocalypse: The End of the World in Turn of the Century Fictions’) which later cropped up as the work of the main character of my third novel,
Jago
. For this, I read up on invasion narratives (George Chesney’s ‘The Battle of Dorking’, Wells’s
The War in the Air
, Saki’s
When William Came
), which imagine England overwhelmed by its enemies (usually the Germans). I was already interested in alternate history science fiction and recognised in this mostly-forgotten genre the precursors of many twentieth-century stories which imagine an alternative outcome to the Second World War featuring a Nazi occupation of Britain (Len Deighton’s
SS/GB
, Kevin Brownlow’s film
It Happened Here
). Other variants are the Communist Britains of Constantine FitzGibbon’s
When the Kissing Had to Stop
and Kingsley Amis’s
Russian Hide and Seek
, the fascist future of Robert Muller’s
After All, This is England
(an underrated novel from a writer whose TV series
Supernatural
was also an influence on the
Anno Dracula
world) and the American-occupied England of my friend Paul McAuley’s story ‘The King Under the Hill’. In a footnote to my section on these stories, I described Dracula’s campaign of conquest in Stoker’s 1897 novel as ‘a one-man invasion’.

I’m not sure when all the connections were made, but at some point in the early ’80s it occurred to me that there might be story potential in an alternative outcome to the novel in which Dracula defeats his enemies and fulfils his stated intention to conquer Britain. It still seems to me something of a disappointment that Stoker’s villain, after all his meticulous planning and with five hundred years of scheming monstrousness under his cloak, has no sooner arrived in Britain than
he trips up and sows the seeds of his eventual undoing by an unlikely pursuit of the wife of a provincial solicitor. Van Helsing describes Dracula’s project in Britain as to become ‘the father or furthurer of a new order of beings, whose road must lead through Death, not Life’. Yet Stoker allegorises Dracula’s assault on Britain entirely as an attack on the Victorian family, an emblem of all the things he prized and saw as fragile. It struck me as an interesting avenue to explore the kind of England, the kind of
world
, which would result if Van Helsing and his family of fearless vampire killers were defeated and Dracula was allowed to ‘father and further’ his new order. I remember discussing this idea with Neil Gaiman and Faith Brooker (then an editor at Arrow) around 1984, when Neil and I were compiling a book called
Ghastly Beyond Belief
for Faith and trying to come up with novel ideas we could sell her (I also remember gruesome horror novel pitches called
The Creeps
and
The Set
). Among many projects we talked about but never did much with was the idea of a trilogy on my ‘Dracula Wins’ theme, which would have concentrated on the workings of a vampire government from the 1880s to the First World War (Neil was keen on writing the trenches scenes). Nothing was ever written down, but the vision then was of a story that concentrated on high places: it was to have been set in the corridors of power, with Dracula as a major character, and the plot would be what eventually became the backstory of the novels, the workings of vampire politics, following Dracula’s rise to power and the efforts of British revolutionary groups and foreign powers to oust him from the throne.