Dracula and the Eastern Question

By the same author

YEATS, COLERIDGE AND THE ROMANTIC SAGE
Dracula and the
Eastern Question
British and French Vampire Narratives
of the Nineteenth-Century Near East

Matthew Gibson
© Matthew Gibson 2006
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2006 978-1-4039-9477-6
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Contents

List of Maps vi

Acknowledgements vii

Note on Translations viii

Introduction 1

1 Polidori’s The Vampyre and the Dangers of Philhellenism

to Italian Liberation 15

2 J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla and the Austro-Hungarian

Ausgleich (1867) 42

3 Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the Treaty of Berlin (1878) 69

4 Bram Stoker’s The Lady of the Shroud and the

Bosnia Crisis (1908–09) 96

5 The Vampires of Illyria: Nodier, Mérimée and the

French Occupation of the Dalmation Coast 123

6 Jules Verne’s Le Château des Carpathes (1892) and the

Romans of Transylvania 147

Conclusion 173

Appendix: Translations from Mérimée’s La Guzla 175

Notes 188

Short Chronology of Relevant Events 207

Bibliography 209

Index 217

v
List of Maps

1. South Eastern Europe in 1812 35

2. The Balkans after the Treaty of Berlin 72
3. Map of South Western Transylvania in Reclus’ Voyage 155

vi
Acknowledgements

I would like to extend my thanks to Dr Terry Hale of Hull University and

Dr Diane Mason of Bath Spa University College for their willingness to
share vital information with me, and would also like to express my
gratitude to the University of Surrey for having provided research
money which allowed me to undertake valuable trips to the Public
Records Office of Northern Ireland in Belfast and to the Bibliothèque
Nationale de France (François Mitterand) in Paris. In particular, I would
like to thank the staff at the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland,
Leeds University Library and Mrs Virginia Murray, curator of the John
Murray Archive, for their generous help while conducting my research.
I should also like to extend a very warm thank-you to my patient
map-maker, Vaughan Allen.
The book is dedicated to the memory of my parents Hugh Ian and
Sheila June Gibson.
The author and publisher would like to thank the following for
permission to reproduce copyrighted material.
An extract of a letter by Jules Verne to his father. ‘La Correspondance
Familiale de Jules Verne’, Lettre 159 de Jules Verne à son père, le ‘lundi
[novembre (?)] 1870’, in Jules Verne (Lyons: La Manufacture, 1988),
p. 454 is reproduced by permission of Olivier Dumas.
An extract from John Polidori’s letter to Lord Byron, 11 January 1817
by permission of John Murray Archive.
An extract from John Polidori’s letter to Gaetano Polidori, Dec 1813
(Angeli-Dennis collection, box 31, folder 5) by permission of University
of British Columbia Library, Rare Books and Special Collections.
Extracts from letters by Anthony Hope Hawkins to Bram Stoker
(13 June 1897; 27 Jan 1898; 28 May 1901) by permission of A.P. Watt Ltd
on behalf of John Hope Hawkins.
Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright holders, but if
any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased
to make the necessary arrangement at the first opportunity.

vii
Note on Translations

All translations from French and Italian are by the author. The attempt
has been in most cases to prioritise exactitude over stylistic felicity. In
nearly all cases (except where it would prove too cumbersome or obvi-
ous) I have provided notes reproducing the original text or have placed
the original French beneath the English text.

viii