#OTD in 1897. First publication of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Let's celebrate #DraculaDay!
The novel was mostly written in the 1890s, and Stoker produced over a hundred pages of notes, drawing extensively from folklore and history. He probably found the name "Dracula" in Whitby's public library while on holiday, selecting it because he thought it meant 'devil' in Romanian.
Dracula at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/345
Non-checked on the web answer:
Literal translation: Drake
Meaning: Dragon = (fire) drake.
But this could of course be wrong, wrong, wrong.
"Meaning & History
Means "son of Dracul" in Romanian, with Dracul being derived from Romanian drac "dragon". It was a nickname of the 15th-century Wallachian prince Vlad III, called the Impaler, whose father was Vlad II Dracul. However, the name Dracula is now most known from the 1897 novel of the same name by Bram Stoker, which features the Transylvanian vampire Count Dracula, probably inspired by the historical Wallachian prince."
@jmcrookston
I tried to reproduce those translation with both Bing Translate and (before I twigged it is AI) DeepL.
Could not get either to equate drac - dragon.
Maybe archaic Romanian or a Latin-Romanian?
@jmcrookston The name Dracula means “son of Dracul.” In the Romanian language today, dracul means “the devil”—drac is “devil,” ul is “the”—but it is derived from the Latin dracō, “dragon.” (Dragons have been historically associated with Satan, hence the evolution.)
What comes to your mind when you see or hear the word Dracula? Probably vampires, right? But what about ruthless Romanian royalty … or dragons? It’s time for the story of Dracula—the word. Where does the character Dracula come from? We dress up as vampires on Halloween and watch dramas like True Blood thanks in […]
RE: https://mastodon.social/@gutenberg_org/116641234435379005
Wouldn't it be more reasonable if he looks more like an actual dragon? @gutenberg_org @jmcrookston
fancy bitch is perfect 😂
@bodhipaksa @gutenberg_org He seems to have taken the word from Emily Gerard’s THE LAND BEYOND THE FOREST (1888):
“More decidedly evil is the nosferatu, or vampire, in which every Roumanian peasant believes as firmly as he does in heaven or hell…”
She did do her research in the field, & hers is the first recorded use of the term, but its origins are obscure.
@gutenberg_org @scotlit @bodhipaksa TIL that there exists a prior source for "nosferatu" published in German by one Wilhelm Schmidt in 1865. (Not the Wilhelm Schmidt who theorized about "original monotheism", he wasn't born yet. This Wilhelm Schmidt was a schoolmaster in Transylvanian Hermannstadt, today's Sibiu.)
🧛 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosferatu_(word)
🧛 https://doaav.blogspot.com/2011/02/unearthing-nosferatu.html
@noctuaminervae @gutenberg_org @scotlit Funnily enough I was reading the Wikipedia article on the etymology of "Nosferatu" on Sunday, after watching a gorgeous restored print of Tod Browning's 1931 "Dracula". Highly recommended, but watch out for the Transylvanian armadilloes!
Incidentally, this was not the first film with "Dracula" in the title, but the other, Drakula Halála (Austria, 1921) has been lost.
Dracula is a 1931 American pre-Code vampire film directed and co-produced by Tod Browning from a screenplay written by Garrett Fort and starring Bela Lugosi...
Project Gutenberg
Jonathan
skua
Mimiregen
Bodhipaksa
Assoc for Scottish Literature
Owlet of Minerva
Barry Cook 🇨🇦
Vluciamonteirop