Question of the Week – December 28, 2008
What’s it like to be related to someone whose singular work of Dracula is so famous and has impacted the film industry and a certain time of year so much?
To be honest I am very proud, but humbled at the same time. The history of the book is pretty tragic, Bram died before the book became popular. F.W, Murnau stole Bram’s story for his 1921 film, “Nosferatu.” The family sued and all prints of the film were ordered destroyed, luckily a few survived. But that unfortunate incident led the family to become so jaded that they never renewed the copyright and never received any royalties from any of the films about Dracula ever made. When the family lost the rights they also lost control of Bram’s characters. Hollywood and novelists, because the book is in the public domain, have cannibalized and bastardized the original story and characters so much over the last century, that Bram’s genius original vision, except to the die hard fans, has practically been lost to generations.
Tags: Dacre Stoker, Question of the Week
I’m greatly looking forward to your book. The original novel is among my Top Five favorite books and, until now, the only other DRACULA novels to earn a place on my bookshelf were Peter Tremayne’s trilogy from the 1970s. I’m curious if either of you have found any DRACULA novels by other authors to your liking and if so, which ones.