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Aug 22, 2023 · The following contains major spoilers for The Last Voyage of the Demeter. If the horror genre has a grandfather, it’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. First published in 1897, the epistolary novel ...
- Jenn Adams
- Overview
- The Dmitry becomes the Demeter
- What inspired Dracula’s canine form?
Stoker was moved by grim details from the world around him while penning his horror masterpiece. The real fate of a ship called the Dmitry played an outsized role in his imaginings.
The arrival of the Demeter in Bram Stoker's Dracula serves as a fundamental part of the titular character's story: the ship brings death himself to England.
Stoker drew inspiration for his genre-defining horror novel from his time in Whitby, and the dark 1885 fate of the real ship Dmitry on the town’s shore.
The death and tragedy around Stoker ultimately shaped the story that became one of the most famous pieces of English literature and set the stage for the next century of vampire lore.
During the summer of 1890, Irish novelist Bram Stoker vacationed at the seaside town of Whitby in northeast England. Despite spending only a month in the town, Stoker was enthralled by his surroundings: grand mansions and hotels lined the West Cliff while remains of the seventh century Whitby Abbey towered over the East Cliff. Nearby, the cemetery at the Parish Church also served as inspiration as the story of Dracula came to life.
Stoker was also enchanted by the many ships making harbor here. He reportedly visited the Whitby Museum to explore the history of these vessels, as well as a local library, where he came upon William Wilkinson’s book The Accounts of Principalities of Wallachia and Moldova. Stoker marked in his notes:
DRACULA in the Wallachian language means DEVIL. The Wallachians were, at that time, as they are at present, used to give this as a surname to any person who rendered himself conspicuous either by courage, cruel actions, or cunning.
Stoker reportedly asked around the shore about shipwrecks in Whitby, notably the Dmitry, a ship that had wrecked five years earlier.
The cargo vessel Dmitry had set sail from Narva in Russia (modern-day Estonia) in 1885. On October 24, the Dmitry was one of two ships run ashore at Whitby by “a storm of great violence,” according to contemporary newspaper accounts. The other vessel, the Mary and Agnes, was stranded in the raging sea and a lifeboat was sent to rescue its crew. When the crew of the Mary and Agnes was ferried to the shore, per the Leeds Mercury, “their safe landing [was] the signal for loud huzzas by the thousands of people assembled on shore.”
(Vlad the Impaler’s thirst for blood was an inspiration for Count Dracula.)
In Stoker’s novel, Dracula himself took the form of a dog to make his way from the Demeter to dry land, but there was no dog reported to have been on the Dmitry. According to Mel Ni Mhaolanfaidh and Marlon McGarry in 2021, the dog in Dracula may be an homage to the wreck of the Greyhound in 1770.
The Greyhound sailed from Whitby and sank off the coast of Ireland on December 12, 1770 (120 years prior to Stoker’s arrival in the town). Stoker’s mother, Charlotte, was from Sligo, a town in close proximity to the wreck. When the storm that sank the ship surged again, a young cabin boy was left stranded. The rescue effort failed, with only one out of the some 20 men sent to save him tragically dying in the process.
(Inside the fortress known as ‘Dracula's castle’.)
Stoker made no reference to a dog in his notes until two months after he’d departed from Whitby. On October 15, 1890, Stoker wrote, “When ship ran in to Collier's Hope, big dog jumped off bow & ran over pier - up Kiln Yard & church steps & into churchyard…Local dog found ripped open & graves torn up…” It’s not clear if Stoker learned of these details from the Dmitry wreck, another Whitby wreck, or was his own creation.
In the novel, the arrival of the Demeter was paired with a similarly remarkable incident: “The very instant the shore was touched, an immense dog sprang up on deck from below, as if shot up by the concussion, and running forward, jumped from the bow on the sand.”
The dog, a disguised Dracula, wrought bloodshed and death from that point forward. This dog resembled the barghest, a mythical monster often associated with Yorkshire. Spellings and specific forms of barghest vary but the dog-like being foretold of pain, disaster, or even death to all who saw it. The barghest also elicited howling from dogs in its vicinity, something Dracula protagonist Mina Murray reported took place soon after the arrival of the Demeter.
Oct 2, 2018 · When the novel was finally released on May 26, 1897, the first 101 pages had been cut, numerous alterations had been made to the text, and the epilogue had been shortened, changing Dracula’s ...
Aug 11, 2023 · The role of Dracula (or Nosferatu) belongs to veteran creature actor Javier Botet, who has terrified audiences for years playing monsters in movies like 2013's Mama, 2016's The Conjuring 2, 2017's ...
- Megan Mccluskey
Aug 5, 2023 · The town of Whitby was a strong influence on Bram Stoker in writing "Dracula."Besides serving as a location in the novel for key events and providing a suitable atmosphere for Gothic fiction, Michael Barsanti of the Rosenbach Library and Museum has said that it was in Whitby — a popular Stoker vacation spot — that the author first encountered the name of Dracula, according to "The Road to ...
- William Fischer
An encounter with Dracula. On 8 August 1890, Stoker walked down to what was known as the Coffee House End of the Quay and entered the public library. It was there that he found a book published in 1820, recording the experiences of a British consul in Bucharest, William Wilkinson, in the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia (now in Romania).
People also ask
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Aug 12, 2023 · Attacked while on watch and leaving nothing but blood and his knife behind, the survivors have no choice but to carry on with their duties despite their mounting dread. As in the novel, a ship ...
