The Makt Myrkranna Translation Project

To be published as an annotated edition, with essays, and a preface by Dacre Stoker.

"I started this translation project in January 2014, after discovering that the Icelandic edition of Dracula pre­sen­ted a completely new version of the story - even more fascinating than the original. But without the help of many friends, I surely would not have managed."

Hans de Roos

From the introductory note to the translated novel

Design for our book cover

For more than a century, the language barrier between Iceland and the rest of the world has stopped fans of supernatural stories from enjoying the unique novel presented here – an early and significant innovation of Bram Stoker’s world famous Dracula, for which Stoker partnered with one of Iceland’s foremost literary talents, Valdimar Ásmundsson. Partly due to the rarity of the book, it has remained hidden to the eye of even the most versed scholars. It was by pure chance (and a good amount of curiosity) that I came across this gemstone of Gothic literature, which even in Iceland had sunken into oblivion and was only recently rediscovered there by my writer-colleague, Ásgeir Jónsson.

The only part of the book that ever caught the attention of vampire buffs was the preface Stoker contributed to it. Except for the few short lines appearing as an anonymous prefix to the British edition, this was and is the only Dracula preface ever published under its author’s name. Dated “London, August 1898”, it suggests that the novelist, within 15 months after the initial publication by Constable & Co., already consented to a radical modification of his novel, predating the later stage adaptations consented to by his widow, Florence, by a quarter century. As a consequence, the publication history of Dracula requires some major revision.

The first English translation of the preface, published by Richard Dalby in 1986, already triggered eager speculations, because it seemed to imply that Stoker wanted to link Dracula with the murders committed by Jack the Ripper (1888), although the 1897 vampire novel did not contain a single reference to these homicides. Strangely, no English-speaking expert took the time to check whether the author’s cryptic remarks about an unsolved crime series and foreigners playing a dazzling role in London’s high society could have some basis in an altered plot. In all the bibliographies covering Stoker’s seminal work, Makt Myrkranna is merely listed as an (abridged) translation. Here, the English denomination Powers of Darkness became established. Evidently, Dalby never studied the rest of his rare copy of the 1901 Icelandic edition. After 25 years of waiting, he had been able to obtain it through a Reykjavik book dealer, but finally having the treasure in his hands, it did not occur to him to take a closer look at it:

“Although this first foreign translation is excessively abridged and cheaply produced, the inclusion of Stoker’s preface - which appeared in no other edition - makes it a fascinating and unique volume.”

This is the appraisal echoed by all secondary literature concerning the subject. Consequently, the original artistic contribution of the book’s translator, co- author and first publisher, Valdimar Ásmundsson, has never been recognised outside of Iceland.

- See our planned book for complete introduction