FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Prequel to Bram Stoker’s Dracula to be Written
by Dacre Stoker and J.D. Barker
Additional information can be found at: www.draculabegins.com
Bram Stoker’s Dracula is arguably one of the greatest horror novels ever written. It has stood the test of time and found life through countless generations. It has been translated into forty-four languages, sold millions of copies worldwide, and inspired more than three hundred films.
What if the book we know today was not the book Bram Stoker submitted to his publisher in 1897?
Dacre Stoker has dedicated the last ten years of his life to researching his family’s legacy. He has pored through documents both public and private in an attempt to piece together information on the man, his great-granduncle who wrote this epic tale, and the events that inspired it. In doing so, he has discovered a disturbing fact: Bram Stoker may have intended Dracula to serve as a warning, a glimpse of a very real evil.
The original Dracula preface (recently discovered in the Icelandic translation) includes the following:
“I am quite convinced that there is no doubt whatever that the events here described really took place, however unbelievable and incomprehensible they might appear at first sight.”
The Icelandic edition is not the only version containing alterations and inconsistences. In 1980, a copy of the original manuscript was discovered, its pages revealing a different ending. The German, Italian, and French versions have numerous discrepancies from the original English. Are these variances errors in translation, or intentional? Could Bram have concealed a message within this altered text? We know he went to great lengths to plant the Islandic preface with the help of his friend, Hall Caine. What else might he have hidden?
“As I delved deeper into his writing, particularly his journals, it became increasingly clear that Bram meant for Dracula to be more than just entertainment,” Dacre explains. “There’s a message here and today’s technology provides the tools we need to decipher it. J.D. Barker and I plan to do just that.”
More information can be found at: www.draculabegins.com
About The Authors
J.D. Barker
J.D. Barker is the international bestselling author of Forsaken (Hampton Creek Press, 2014). A finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Debut Novel, the expertly crafted tale twists both past and present into a fast-paced, suspenseful ride that leaves you hungry for more. His latest novel, The Fourth Monkey, is set to release early in 2016. He currently splits his time between Englewood, FL, and Pittsburgh, PA, with his wife, Dayna.
When asked about this project, Barker had this to say: “The information uncovered by Dacre is phenomenal. Bram Stoker truly believed vampires were real. As the world turns the last page of this book, we may find ourselves wondering if he was right.”
Dacre Stoker
As the official representative of the Bram Stoker Estate, Dacre Stoker travels the world with his compelling presentation, Stoker on Stoker. The presentation weaves together the details of Dracula’s history, Stoker family history, and Bram Stoker’s life in Dublin and London, then separates fact from popular fiction…revealing the truth about all things Stoker and Dracula. Stoker is the co-author of the bestselling novel Dracula the Un-Dead (Dutton, 2009) and Bram Stoker’s Lost Journal (Robson Press, 2012), a nonfiction book based on Stoker’s unpublished personal journal found in an attic on the Isle of Wight. He currently lives in South Carolina with his wife and children.
Complete Icelandic Edition Preface
“The reader of this story will very soon understand how the events outlined in these pages have been gradually drawn together to make a logical whole. Apart from excising minor details which I considered unnecessary, I have let the people involved relate their experiences in their own way; but, for obvious reasons, I have changed the names of the people and places concerned. In all other respects I leave the manuscript unaltered, in deference to the wishes of those who have considered it their duty to present it before the eyes of the public. I am quite convinced that there is no doubt whatever that the events here described really took place, however unbelievable and incomprehensible they might appear at first sight. And I am further convinced that they must always remain to some extent incomprehensible, although continuing research in psychology and natural sciences may, in years to come, give logical explanations of such strange happenings which, at present, neither scientists nor the secret police can understand. I state again that this mysterious tragedy which is here described is completely true in all its external respects, though naturally I have reached a different conclusion on certain points than those involved in the story. But the events are incontrovertible, and so many people know of them that they cannot be denied. This series of crimes has not yet passed from the memory – a series of crimes which appear to have originated from the same source, and which at the same time created as much repugnance in people everywhere as the murders of Jack the Ripper, which came into the story a little later. Various people’s minds will go back to the remarkable group of foreigners who for many seasons together played a dazzling part in the life of the aristocracy here in London; and some will remember that one of them disappeared suddenly without apparent reason, leaving no trace. All the people who have willingly – or unwillingly – played a part in this remarkable story are known generally and well respected. Both Jonathan Harker and his wife (who is a woman of character) and Dr. Seward are my friends and have been so for many years, and I have never doubted that they were telling the truth; and the highly respected scientist, who appears here under a pseudonym, will also be too famous all over the educated world for his real name, which I have not desired to specify, to be hidden from people – least of all those who have from experience learnt to value and respect his genius and accomplishments, though they adhere to his views on life no more than I. But in our times it ought to be clear to all serious-thinking men that “there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
London,
Bram Stoker
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