Powers of Darkness

Powers of Darkness (Swedish: Mörkrets makter) is a translation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula published in the Stockholm newspaper Dagen in 1899–1900. It is longer than Dracula and features an expanded cast of characters, elaborate adventures in the Transylvanian castle, a lovers’ reunion in a Hungarian sanitorium, a mystical honey pot, and a showdown with the Count in London. The new content is rich in eroticism, xenophobia, spiritualism, and vague political conspiracies. This is the first time that the full Swedish text of Powers of Darkness has been translated into English; until now this story was only available in the much-abbreviated Icelandic version Makt Myrkranna. This edition contains a foreword by Hans Corneel de Roos, an expert on the Nordic Dracula variants and translator of the Icelandic text, and essays on xenophobia and racism in fin-de-siècle monster literature by Tyler Tichelaar and Sezin Koehler. It is illustrated with the original pen-and-ink drawings by Emil Åberg printed in the newspaper in 1899.