#dracula novel inspired

[theholmwoodfoundation]

We asked our Discord Server how to describe Holmwood, and this was the result.

What would you put to get people to listen?

PS: You can join our Discord Server for as little as £5 as part of our Kickstarter rewards where everyone spends their time bullying Dracula's Head. (Or maybe, he's bullying us. You'll have to see for yourself.)

GET INVOLVED HERE

[autumnsartblog]

Attatchment

— REBLOGS + COMMENTS APPRECIATED

[g1ngerbeer]

halloween yippee

[dimenoveladozen]

Fan Reading Project Recruitment!

Are you a fan, especially a femslash fan, who's interested in reading a funky little (~30 pp.) piece of 19th C. mass-popular literature serialized over several weeks? If so, I've got the project for you! Join us for a casual, opt-in reading group of a short 19th C. dime novel, beginning January 15, 2024!

You can sign up here if you're interested!

More on the Project:

I'm a PhD Candidate in English and Women's and Gender Studies working on a dissertation on nineteenth-century American working-class women, queer pleasure and possibility, and mass-popular literature. As part of my project, I've spent a lot of time in archives reading 19th C. story papers and dime novels, genres of degraded literature that were incredibly popular among factory and mill workers but that have received very little scholarly attention. What's fascinating is how similar this mass-popular literature is to fan fiction--not just in its sensational plots and queer elements (sometimes there really is just one bed in the cabin), but especially in how it was consumed (often in serial format, shared amongst exuberant, fannish communities who even had their own shipping wars in the letters to the editor columns!) and in how it was critiqued (before Anthony Comstock came for pornography, he led a whole campaign against this kind of literature as "perverting" and tending to promote "evil reading"). Although I'm a fan myself, I know that one person's readings can never fully capture the wide variety of responses and interpretations that a whole group of fans and consumers can have, which is where you all come in! For the final chapter of my dissertation, I'll be serially disseminating chapters of a short dime novel for a group of participants to discuss in a private Discord to explore the creative possibilities of fan reading practices.

You're welcome to be as involved as you would like - maybe you just end up reading along and reacting to the comments of others, or perhaps you find yourself writing fan meta or even making memes and other creative responses! If you have any questions, feel free to DM me here!

If you'd like to sign up (which doesn't obligate you to participate), you can use the following Qualtrics link, which provides more information about the project, including the study number for the IRB-issued exemption: https://umich.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1HAkpIJDEaUfWOa

[thecandlewasters]

[characterssaythedarnestthings]

"Ow, fuck-" exclaimed Count Dracula, his mouth bleeding after accidentally biting his tongue for the third time this week. "Ow."

[myfanfictiongarden]

Alright, I’m gonna be that one person and state the fact that No, Mina was not deserted by God, and no, she wasn’t punished for any uncommitted sin either! That is not what the novel tells. 

Do you really think that bad things only ever happen to bad people? In our real world, you really think that tragic accidents, events or illnesses only come upon people who deserve them? No! You can be as prepared in life as you want for any possibility and still things may come that beat you down. Van Helsing thought excluding Mina from further vampire-investigations would prevent her becoming Dracula’s next target, turns out it happened anyway! That has nothing to do with “God´s Will”, it’s all upon Dracula because the monster he is.

Speaking of Dracula, it’s not like he represents the Devil himself in the novel, he is more like an agent of the Devil here on earth, not the Lord of Hell himself. He is a willing instrument who gave into darkness and eagerly attempts to spread it. You know what our heroes are? Agents of Light, they are literary instruments of God´s love on earth fighting Darkness. Neither God nor the Devil interact personally in this story (or irl for that matter) but it’s up to the mere humans to know what path to choose. 

It’s kinda like in Lord of the Rings. In that universe you do have powerful God-like beings, but after the first battles they decided never to interact personally anymore because continents literary go under their powers. Thats why in the actual story we have ordinary people doing the work, humans, dwarfs, hobbits. Do you know how many times Frodo, a good and kind Hobbit, wonders why this heavy burden came upon him? How did he deserve such suffering and pain? His whole body is becoming marked by the power of the Ring, he is afraid his soul may slipp too. (Seems familiar? Well, Mina is going through the exact same thing!) In this story, they are not battling Morgoth (the Devil) himself, no, they are fighting Sauron, who simply put to use all that he learned from his Dark Master.

On Oct 4th in Jonathan’s diary he mentions Mina saying “perhaps we are all the instruments of ultimate good”- God acts through us (like the Devil may too), so isn’t it wonderful what power we have with love&faith?

Dracula has superpowers? So do our heroes in the form of Love and Faith.

God is Love, and they have Love in abundance.

[jojotier]

I see now that it was a mistake to send you such a letter in dire haste. Had all my wits been about me I would have burned that letter the moment its composition had ended and scattered the ashes. That way you needn’t lie awake so desperately hoping for one more frenzied reply. That way, you wouldn’t read how my heart appears to have taken permanent residence in my throat.

In answer: Lucien is still safe in bed. Since the moment he laid down he did not rise but to toilet, and even then did so unwillingly. I have kept vigilant watch.

Even as I write this he rests lightly. The delicate rise and fall of his chest rustles the silk linens and I pause in writing from time to time just to watch him breathe.

He used to tell me the habit was ghastly morbid. I wonder if now the thought has changed, as the pallor of his skin has deepened; as his lips crack with abandoned movement; as his expanding ribs, at times, stutter in rhythm.

In further answer: I am to blame for Lucien's burning.

You know this and yet you refused to accuse me in your letter; thus, I confess to the crime. It was gross negligence that led me from your brother’s chamber in the waning light of the evening and a misplaced hope.

I had been under the impression that Lucien was beginning to recover. Not fully; but enough. The deep yellow bruising which tanned his hide had lightened to sickly pallor. His hands still shook. His breath was still shortened from time to time. But he began taking deep lungfuls of air from the open window and had begun to unfurl the heavy hunch of his back where he walked. That hated play of his was left to the wayside, the notes of his obsession slowing, and when he held my cheek it was simply to look at me.

Lucien had passed his thumb over my cheek and sighed, “My love,” so gently. His eyes still held those deep bags beneath, but there was light there, the brown of his eyes warming as oak. Yesterday afternoon, I sat and read to him, and he didn’t say a word; merely laid his head upon my shoulder and peered at the pages to read along.

After I’d served supper, Lucien had asked me, “What are they playing in the theatre?” His lucidity had been much improved since the day previous, and his voice was clear, if still somewhat faint against the general noise of Market Street. To say nothing of the relief I felt, knowing this creature of the playhouses longed to return!

I told him that As You Like It had returned and would serve as preulde to the production of Twelfth Night.

“No, my darling, you must be mistaken,” Lucien said, playing with the tips of my fingers, “I had heard Twelfth Night wasn’t until December,”

I informed him that December was a scant fortnight away.

“And is it not Camille this week?” 

It will be next.

“Hm.” He’d said, “I fear someone in my acquaintance is lying to me.”

I smiled, and asked him whether he accused his Jonathan of the act. I received no smile in return.

Where before my Lucien might have smiled, dimples etching themselves anew into his pretty face, now his eyes remained still. The tide of attempted joviality buffeted against the stone of Lucien’s gaze until its forced retreat to lowness and Lucien answered, “Not you. Never you.”

For days, I have spent all of my waking hours waiting upon Lucien’s bedside. You know already that we have entertained your company; we’ve entertained Leon’s company, and we’ve entertained the company of your wife, God bless her. What you don’t know is that Lucien has not permitted any other visitors in all this time. It has only ever been his dearest few.

I asked him who was lying, then- what were the contents of the lie, and what could they possibly gain from the lying? But Lucien shook his head. No matter how I pressed, he would not speak to it.

I was half-convinced that it was some game borne of his ill humors and that perhaps the lucidity was somewhat of a lie. It was at this point that he asked me if I trusted him.

Had it been any other time, the answer would have been instant: yes. A thousand times yes, with the strength of every vow that could be made to heaven, yes. Lucien is, above all, my dearest heart.

But when I opened my mouth, I imagined that damned play, hiding beneath the mattress. The script written in increasingly harried hand. My Lucien's voice, so feeble in his delirious cry of no mask? No mask! to the audience of pestilent spirits at the door. In that moment, my voice had been seized.

And yet I still told him yes. He bade me not speak of this, but I told him yes, and I tell you all.

I sat on the bedside, a man condemned, as I told Lucien I trusted him with my heart. Yes, it is no lie. If nothing else, I trust him so with all my heart.

But is it not a lie, that I was beginning to suspect his mind?

To distract from the hypocrisy I was brewing, I asked him the same, attempting to be light: "Could you trust me, then, while I keep you stuck abed?"

“Were God to kneel an oracle at my feet,” Lucien told me, “I’d sooner kill prophecy than believe Him, if you thought Him false.”

The melody of his previous lyricism bubbled from beneath the pallor and the boils. It made me wonder how long he’d spent writing even without a pen; how he conjured words from the river-fog which had been choking his mind. It made me wonder how long he’d been waiting to say this.

His gaze is heat itself. It is his charm as an actor; intensity, a roiling fire in his eyes bellied by the low thrum of his voice weaving spells. This magic bound thousands at a time and now it was meant only for me. There is nothing I could do under the force of such sincerity.

I told him I loved him. It may be hard for you to understand, Devon, but I do love him. More than any lyric could sing of it.

He asked only for me to retrieve some of the play bills. He missed seeing the illustrations on the fronts, of seeing the little cast sheets sandwiched in among the advertisements and promises of further entertainment. I agreed.

The errand wasn't too terribly long. It took but fifteen minutes in total. Market Street was slower in the moments before the evening rush of playgoers stampeded by. The valet who gave me my copy was commenting on what a shame it'd be, seeing Pulitzer send Cockeril off to New York, as though the news were not lime dust by then.

I was preoccupied by the peculiar conversation as I made my way back to the apartment. I had been musing on how a little light murder could be excused if one simply wrote most sensationally, and it was then when the scent of smoke rose from the open window of our apartment.

From there, I dare not say more. It pains me to think of the fire; to see the furls of Lucien's pretty script erupt into mere fantasy. To have seen Lucien staring, entranced, the flames licking up his wrists...

It is more than one man can bear. Yet I would never ask you to bear it with me.

From here, I know not how to finish this letter. You know the ending of the account. You know that your brother lays, asleep, under my evermore watchful eye. You know as much as I do.

My only plea then is that you might come soon and stay long. Stay long, and then stay longer than you believe is long enough.

Your business will survive without you for a while. Your wife will keep all well, and I have no doubt that you might leave messengers with her who might deal with the more ignoble clients of yours on her behalf. Leon has mastered the commute between work and leisure and Lucien as well- so why not attempt the skill yourself?

I hope only that I did not cause you undue stress. I hope that you know how much your presence means to Lucien.

But above all- please, please forgive me.

Jonathan

(November 19th, 1883)

[marzipanandminutiae]

I am begging you people to let one (1) thing be about women. especially about F/F romance. for the love of god

(also my hot take is that if you're not okay with Dracula/Mina because of Moral Implications- feeling that way due to personal taste is whatever; you do you and damn canon -you should also not be okay with Dracula/Jonathan. Jonathan doesn't want him any more than Mina does; you're just lost in the homoerotic subtext/Bram Stoker's Barely Suppressed Gay Tendencies sauce)

In all fairness, fans of the book Dracula tend to hate that adaptations make him a romantic lead.

I say though, that Carmilla has a lot more romantic connotations towards Laura in her book than Dracula ever has towards Mina.

YES AND THAT MAKES IT WORSE

like geez...you have one vampire novel that actually has a BASIS for the romanticized version of the story, and somehow that's not the one with the hero upgrade trend?

[stjohnstarling]

Wanna' come back to my place? I was thinking you might pierce my heart and spill its blood in a frenzy of barbarous delight.

Father Ardelian has been summoned to a distant, secluded island to perform an exorcism. What will happen when he begins to suspect his host — the mysterious, nocturnal lord of the manor — of wanting him for another reason entirely? Will the piously celibate priest be able to resist the monster’s diabolically seductive charms?

What Manner of Man is a queer gothic romance novel about a priest and a vampire, inspired by Dracula Daily.

Get the novel here or DRM-free on Itch.io AND read the free draft!

[prokopetz]

Can you go over what is going on with Paladins and Clerics in DND, not from a mechanical or in universe perspective, but from what different sources/genres/tropes they are drawing on? They always seemed to have too much overlap in the basic concept to me to make sense as separate things in the dnd classes/stock character line up.

Clerics originated way back in the pre-OD&D days, when the game that would become Dungeons & Dragons was still a fantasy roleplaying add-on intended to be paired with your favourite historical wargame. One of the players in Dave Arneson's original Blackmoor campaign had an army whose commander/player character was a vampire named Sir Fang, who proved to be sufficiently overpowered that a mechanical "hard counter" was desired.

This ended up taking the form of a vampire-hunting priest character heavily inspired by Peter Cushing's turn as Abraham Van Helsing in the 1958 Christopher Lee adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula; that vampire-hunting priest in turn developed into what would become one of original flavour D&D's three core classes (the other two being the fighter and the wizard – the thief/rogue came later).

The paladin, meanwhile, was originally a direct, 1:1 lift of Holger Carlsen, the protagonist of Poul Anderson's 1961 fantasy novel Three Hearts and Three Lions, and was introduced as a subclass of the fighter – rather than a class of its own – in the 1975 Greyhawk supplement. Over the game's editions it's wandered from being a fighter subclass, to being a high-level "advanced class" to which qualifying characters can switch at 10th level, back to being a fighter subclass, and finally to a core class, where it's generally remained.

So, in short, the cleric was originally a purpose-built hard counter to vampire PCs loosely patterned after Peter Cushing's Abraham Van Helsing, while the paladin was originally for people who just really wanted to be one specific Poul Anderson character.

(I'm sorry if that's not a terribly satisfying answer, but you need to understand that practically everything in old-school D&D is a 1960s or 1970s pop culture reference – it just doesn't read that way to modern audiences because nobody gets the memes anymore.)

[ryttu3k]

"[redacted] has taken THE classic horror novel and dragged it into the twenty-first century in this fabulous, feminist, and fierce retelling. Mina Harker was one of the most passive women in literature, representing Victorian virtue until she is attacked, and then is considered soiled because of it. The Mina of [redacted] is intelligent, flawed, and fiercely relatable. She takes matters into her own hands, and forms a band of badass women, reimagining Stoker's boys club in a manner that will leave you pumping your fist in the air with triumph."

Tell me you've never read Bram Stoker's Dracula without telling me you've never fuckin' read Bram Stoker's Dracula -_-

Mina knows Jonathan is in trouble before anyone else does. Mina prevents Lucy from being killed that night in Whitby. Mina travels to Hungary to retrieve Jonathan herself. Mina puts the stories together. Mina transcribes all of Jack's recordings. Mina collects the Demeter logs. Mina inspires Renfield to fight back. After she's attacked, the remaining characters do pretty much everything possible for Mina, but more to the point, Mina is continuing to be actively involved in the investigation (with everything from pushing back into Dracula's mind to track his movements, to memorised train timetables, no less!) And in the epilogue, Van Helsing more or less says that all of their successes and triumphs were due to Mina. She is the emotional heart of the book and the characters know it.

Claiming this book is a ~feminist retelling~ is ignoring the fact that Mina is already the emotional heart of Dracula. She's already intelligent, flawed, and fiercely relatable, and she already takes things into her own hands!

'One of the most passive women in literature'? Yeah, no. I don't often say 'read the book!', but if you're going to review a retelling while bashing the original, read the damn book first.

Edit: @spiciestmarinara has a review of the book here! Sounds like a decent book in its own right, but pretty terrible as an adaptation of Dracula, and thus of Mina as a character.

[glow-in-the-dark-death]

Don’t know if you take writing prompts so if you don’t feel free to ignore this I have an idea for a dcxdp crossover ghost hunger au ( but only if you want otherwise it’s just Danny being able to eat anything and everything literally )ghost prince Danny au Redeemed Vlad au Vlad x Maddie x jack 

 Halfas were mistaken for a lot of things in mythology and being very rare they were often considered the “special ones” of whatever species they were mistaken for and the last halfa before Vlad was the one that inspired the novel of Dracula Yes there are vampires, but the one from the story of Dracula was not a vampire

Anyway, Danny trying to hide from the GIW decides to lean in on the mistaken identity, and what better city to do that in then Gotham, the one rumored to have monsters already patrolling its streets anyway Danny, gets mistaken for a vampire and Danny decides to roll with it setting up shop in an abandoned cathedral while trying to get the undead of Gotham back into the zone ( Grundy, the talons, Jason, and possibly a few others)

And Vlad occasionally has him going to galas for business (and practice for when Danny is the ghost king ) and of course, Danny continues the vampire act there too tone down, but still enough to give off an otherworldly vibe

I love this idea! I think I've only ever seen one other story about fake vampire Danny.

I'm not really able to write an actual story with world building or anything nice like that (trust me I've tried not pretty🫠😆), my stuff is usually just gibberish that I clean up a bit before posting, so I'm really sorry if you wanted an actual mini story.

~

But I'll try to do a little prompt!

~

Tell Me What I Am

There had been some odd rumors going around Gotham.

Those who were more sensitive said that the dead becoming aware, most didn't pay much truth to all that was being said.

Still everyone was more alert feeling like the entirety of Gotham was in the presence of something Other.

~

Jason didn't enjoy going to the galas when he was young and now as the recent 'No Longer Dead Wayne Child" he was forced to go once again.

He looked around trying to avoid all the rich snobs that were trying to push their daughters practically into his arms

He snorted at his thoughts, "Very much not my type."

Distracted he bumped into someone and oh-speaking of his type.

~

Danny didn't mean to bump into someone especially the guest of honor of the gala but it had been a while since he was able to properly eat something that actual filled him up and not just distracted his mind a bit before it came back,

So forgive him for being distracted and-

oh

oh?

Oh!

"You smell divine" he mumbled in between his suddenly overly sharp teeth

"..Wha-Thanks I guess?"

Danny's foggy mind suddenly snapped back into sharp focus once he felt Vlad call for him.

He quickly fled from the man

' Shit I almost bit him what the hell! '

~

Jason thought back to the night of the gala

"Hey B, do the Masters seem...odd to you?"

Bruce glance up from his work

"Did something happen?"

He thought about the sharp fangs suddenly in the young man's mouth alongside his comment feeling almost like prey under his intense gaze that pinned him in place with the sheer hunger and want in them.

How the older man pulled him away but not before Jason saw his eyes flash red for barely a second.

"....Maybe."

~

Just an Idea

Hope this was to your taste Anon!

[susiephone]

wtf is dracula daily?

i’ve seen a couple people ask this question on my posts about it, so i thought i’d go ahead and clear it up here!

ok so, the classic horror novel “dracula” is an epistolary novel - that means it’s told via letters, diary entries, ship logs, and news articles. (technically the term “epistolary novel” refers to works told solely through letters or emails, but many have expanded it to mean any work that is told via in-universe documents, hence why diaries and logs often get included as well. “frankenstein” is another classic example; the whole framing device is robert walton is recounting the story he heard from victor to his sister via letter. a modern example would be “several people are typing,” which is told via slack messages, or “the perks of being a wallflower,” which is told via letters from charlie to his anonymous pen pal, which is functionally more like you’re reading his diary.)

because of the nature of the narrative, we actually know the exact day nearly everything in dracula happens - the letters, news articles, diary entries, etc. are all dated.

“dracula daily” is a substack project where the novel is broken up into parts, with people who are subscribed to the project getting emails every day something in dracula happens - for example, the novel opens with jonathan harker’s journal entry on may 3, so on may 3, subscribers are emailed that entry. the action of dracula takes place from may 3 - november 6, plus an epilogue set some years later. the project started in 2021 (i think), but fucking BLEW UP in 2022, and they’re doing it again this year! lots of us are very excited - especially people like me who fell behind last time.

why not just read the book?

valid! due to some parts of dracula being told out of chronological order, dracula daily does reorder some things. for example, the first section of dracula is told entirely from jonathan harker’s pov, then the second section switches the pov to mina murray. their sections have some overlap in the timeline, so dracula daily jumps back and forth between their perspectives.

if you want to read the book as bram stoker intended, dracula daily may not be for you. but for a lot of people (myself included!), it breaks up a very long text into easily digestible chunks (....mostly. there is one entry that is 10k words), and the fact that it’s a big project means there are a lot of people reading along with you.

i think there’s also something valuable about experience the slow revelation of wtf is going on along with the characters. the book which you might otherwise get through in a few days is stretched out into months of suspense and agony as you wait for the other shoe to drop, and it’s great.

plus, the whiplash between “jonathan harker’s neverending horror” vs “lucy is basically on the bachelorette” that you get in dracula daily is very very funny.

how do i sign up?

right here! and if you sign up and fall behind in the emails, no worries - the dracula daily website posts past entries so you can catch up.

what if i prefer audiobooks?

have i got great news for you!

like i mentioned before, i couldn’t keep up with the emails last year. part of it is that it is much easier for me to focus on an audiobook or keep up with a podcast than it is for me to sit down and read, especially with longer entries.

this year, there is going to be a podcast titled “re: dracula” that was inspired by dracula daily. every episode will be a dracula daily entry, with a full voice cast! (seriously, if you listen to british podcasts, you will recognize some of these names. the magnus archives and wooden overcoats girlies are WINNING.) you can find that here.

there is also a podcast called “cryptic canticles” that has an already-completed audiodrama of dracula that i’m told is also extremely good, and was also broken up by date. you can find that here.

why do i keep hearing about paprika/the boyfriend squad/lizard fashion/cowboys?

you’ll see.

oh god am i gonna hear about this nerd shit for the rest of the year

yes. sorry.

[netmors]

Mr. Bridger looked at Lady Sabine's sketches with irony, hoping to cheer the girl up a little in such a depressing situation: - So who was it? Miss Wren? I don't believe you saw a living dead person? Your thoughts are frighteningly correct, Mr. Bridger, - Alexander joined the conversation. - According to the found records of old Captain Pellaeon, he personally witnessed the death of the admiral at the Battle of Bilbringi… Hera turned even paler. Five hundred years… Impossible. - Wait, Alexander, but that was over five hundred years ago! How could he? How can it be alive now?! - I would like to know this as much as you, Miss Syndulla. - Arghhhhh, I am more concerned about those who were with him in the castle and attacked me, Mr. Kallus and Mr. Jarrus. They do not seem like his usual pawns. They were… not very kind. - Hm, calm down, Mr. Orrelios, that's what we're trying to find in the journal. Presumably, they're not as free to act as the former Grand Admiral. - After they dealt with Pryce and chased us, I'm not so sure of your words. - Oh, here it is!

…."On my deathbed, I can finally tell, no, I can forget these terrible memories of that fateful day. I will never stop thinking about what happened that day, and I will blame myself until my last breath on this mortal world, but… But, Force, I… I must go… Go before they come! The traitors who dared to go against the will of the Emperor! Who turned their back on their Grand Admiral! Those he came for in their final hour!"...

Mr. Kallus finished reading the last entry, and the company sank into an uncomfortable silence. Then, sighing, the former Imperial said: - Well, things are starting to make sense… Other records from the Coruscant archive mentioned two allies of the Grand Admiral, supposedly responsible for Thrawn's death, however… Years later, they also died. - As you can see, no, - Miss Wren summed up the conversation gloomily, and then looked at Alexander. - Apparently none of the former Imperials can find peace even in the afterlife. Or… Unless they followed him voluntarily…

Making the text in the "style" of the 19th century turned out to be more difficult than I thought.

Inspired by the first half of Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula", this unusual art post for Halloween turned out.

Soundtracks:

Secession Studio - All Your Rage, All Your Pain

Secession Studio - Be Bold and Be Brave

Secession Studio - Veil of Shadows

[thethirdromana]

Mem., get recipe for Mina: a food guide to Dracula Daily

Inspired by There and Snack Again (in which you eat along with the LOTR movies), this is your guide to eating and drinking along with Dracula Daily.

All under a cut because there's no way I can do this without extensive spoilers. I strongly recommend not reading this unless you already know what happens in Dracula. Also only if you're comfortable reading about alcoholic drinks - there's a lot of booze in this novel.

Let's eat!

2 May We start with the famous paprika hendl. Google "chicken paprikash" and choose whichever recipe most strikes your fancy.

3 May For breakfast, choose from mamaliga (cornmeal porridge, similar to grits), "impletata" (vânătă umplută - stuffed aubergine) or anything with more paprika in it.

4 May For dinner, Jonathan has robber steak: "bits of bacon, onion, and beef, seasoned with red pepper, and strung on sticks and roasted over the fire".

5 May Slivovitz, if you'd like it (Jonathan declines). Then, for dinner, Dracula serves up roast chicken, with some cheese, a salad and a glass or two of Tokaji wine.

6 May "A cold breakfast" for Jonathan. In Romania a cold breakfast might include boiled eggs, telemea (sheep's cheese), franzela (bread) with assorted spreads, sliced cucumber and tomatoes, and sunculita taraneasca (sliced smoked pork). Jonathan also has "an excellent supper", but doesn't tell us what that includes.

16 May Would it be too bleak if I suggested eating a symbolic Jelly Baby?

26 May A glass of wine as Quincey and Jack congratulate Arthur and drown their sorrows.

18 June There's a kind of Scottish fruit slice called "flies' graveyard". That might make a suitable snack given Renfield's meal today.

24 June I guess a gingerbread woman, for the wolves? IDK, it turns out doing this for a horror novel is a bit grim.

8 July Thankfully the internet has hundreds of ideas for spider-themed cakes so you can eat along with Renfield.

18 July The voyage of the Demeter begins! Celebrate by eating like a sailor: have some salt pork, or make ship's biscuit.

20 July Renfield has just eaten several sparrows. Provide redress by feeding birds near you, bird flu guidance permitting.

24 July Imitate the "feet-folk" from York and Leeds by drinking some tea or eating some cured herring.

10 August Lucy and Mina enjoy a "severe tea". There are lots of severe teas in Victorian literature, but few writers actually describe what's in it - e.g. the Churchman's shilling magazine, 1868, has a story with a severe tea "which implies coffee, tea, and muffins, with substantials". What are substantials? I have no idea, but that's what you should eat today.

11 August Dracula has a little nibble on Lucy. I don't suggest doing this for every vampire bite in the novel, but given this one is particularly significant, how about marking the occasion with some black pudding?

30 August No food details for a while, but in this entry, Lucy notes that she "has an appetite like a cormorant" and "Arthur says I am getting fat". Celebrate with some cake.

3 September Van Helsing has been! And surely he wouldn't have come all the way from the Netherlands empty-handed? Acknowledge his visit with some gouda or a stroopwafel.

4 September Eat some sugar, which Renfield has requested for his flies.

7 September To stay in line with what the characters actually eat and drink, have a glass of port (though ideally not if you've just given blood). But for the real spirit of the day, consider a corn-on-the-cob.

9 September Free space! Jack has "an excellent meal" but doesn't say what it is. Dig into your favourite dinner.

10 September A sip of brandy, with which Van Helsing wets Lucy's lips.

11 September The garlic flowers arrive. There's lots that you can make with wild garlic - personally, I like it in risotto.

17 September A boxful of garlic flowers arrive for Lucy every day. Time to make chicken with 40 cloves of garlic. Other options for today include more black pudding (in honour of Renfield lapping up Jack's blood) or sherry.

18 September The Zookeeper enjoys a teacake, and so shall we.

20 September No food, but the labourers have "a stiff glass of grog". This is rum diluted with water, but you could also add lemon or lime juice, sugar, and/or cinnamon.

25 September Nibble another Jelly Baby for the Bloofer Lady.

29 September A lot happens in this entry, but there's not a lot of food. There are thirsty labourers, however. Maybe have a beer?

30 September Mina makes everyone a pot of tea. Also, we don't know what they have for dinner, but they eat it at 7pm, if you'd like to time your evening meal accordingly.

1 October More tea! Since this is being gulped down by a working man, make it builder's style - strong, sweet, lots of milk.

2 October Jonathan visits the Aërated Bread Company. He only has a cup of tea, but you could have whatever you like best from their menu:

(source)

3 October Dracula forces Mina to drink his blood like "a child forcing a kitten's nose into a saucer of milk". You could either have some more black pudding, or drink a glass of milk in solidarity with Mina.

15 October The Crew of Light aren't focusing much on meals any more, but they have travelled on the Orient Express. Here's the 1887 dining car menu.

(source - I can't vouch for the accuracy of a random person on Twitter but it looks plausible)

29 October No one is thinking of food in this bit of the novel (though Mina makes yet more tea), but as they're heading to Romania, have some sarmale. These stuffed cabbage rolls are the Romanian national dish.

31 October Mina and Van Helsing have "a huge basket of provisions". Have a picnic in their honour, if it's warm enough where you are.

1 November Mina and Van Helsing have "hot soup" into which the local cooks have put an extra amount of garlic. Consider having a truly extra amount of garlic with this 44-garlic-clove soup.

7 November The Crew of Light return to Transylvania. No details of food, but in honour of their journey, I would suggest a final round of chicken paprikash, to bring us back to where it all began.