Bram Stoker and Gothic Transylvania

Analysing the influence of Bram Stoker’s readings about Transylvania on the representation of this region in Dracula can shed a new light on the construction of this famous fictional place (Leatherdale, 1987: 97–9, 108–110; Frayling, 1991: 317–20, 331; Goldsworthy, 1998: 77–82; Miller, 2006: 122–7; Cris‚an, 2013: 214–26). As Stoker never visited Transylvania, his representation of this space is partially inspired by the sources he consulted on the region: five books – William Wilkinson, An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia (1820), Charles Boner, Transylvania: Its Products and Its People (1865), Andrew F. Crosse, Round About the Carpathians (1878), A Fellow of the Carpathian Society [Nina Elizabeth Mazuchelli], ‘Magyarland’: Being the Narrative of Our Travels Through the Highlands and Lowlands of Hungary (1881), Major E.C. Johnson, On the Track of the Crescent: Erratic Notes from the Piraeus to Pesth (1885) – and an article, ‘Transylvanian Superstitions’ by Emily Gerard, published in The Nineteenth Century (1885) and included in the volume The Land Beyond the Forest (1888). However, there is no doubt that it is Stoker’s originality which created the successful image of the fictional Transylvania.