Powers of Darkness

Description

Powers of Darkness is an incredible literary discovery: In 1900, Icelandic publisher and writer Valdimar Asmundsson set out to translate Bram Stoker's world famous 1897 novel Dracula. Called Makt Myrkranna (literally, "Powers of Darkness"), this Icelandic edition included an original preface written by Stoker himself. Makt Myrkranna was published in Iceland in 1901 but remained undiscovered outside of the country until 1986, when Dracula scholarship was astonished by the discovery of Stoker's preface to the book. However, no one looked beyond the preface and deeper into Asmundsson's story. In 2014, researcher Hans de Roos dove into the full text of Makt Myrkranna, only to discover that Asmundsson hadn't merely translated Dracula but had penned an entirely new version of the story, with all new characters and a totally reworked plot. The resulting narrative is one that is shorter, punchier, more erotic, and perhaps even more suspenseful than Stoker's Dracula. Incredibly, Makt Myrkranna has never been translated or even read outside of Iceland until now. Powers of Darkness presents the first ever translation into English of Stoker and Asmundsson's Makt Myrkranna.Powers of Darkness will amaze and entertain legions of fans of Gothic literature, horror, and vampire fiction.

Hans Corneel de Roos is an independent researcher specializing in French and British Art of the second half of the 19th Century. He is author of The Ultimate Dracula and numerous other articles on Dracula. He is a recipient of the Research Award of the Transylvanian Society of Dracula. Bram Stoker (1847-1912), an Irish novelist and short story writer, was known during his lifetime as the personal assistant of actor Henry Irving and business manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London, which Irving owned, but is best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula. Vladimar Asmundsson (1852-1902) was the founder and editor of the Icelandic literary journal, Lady of the Mountains. Dacre Stoker is a Canadian-American writer, athlete, and filmmaker. He is the author of Dracula: The Un-Dead, and is the great-grand-nephew of Bram Stoker. He lives in South Carolina with his family. John Edgar Browning is a Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is author or editor eleven academic and popular trade books and more than 50 articles, book chapters, and reviews on subjects that cluster around horror, the undead, Bram Stoker, and the Gothic. He has also been a guest on National Geographic's Taboo USA and The Discovery Channel's William Shatner's Weird or What? to discuss vampires.