Dracula Daily- Retelling of a classic for a new generation
Writes Kate O’Flanagan
In early May I started receiving emails from a man I’d never met who had gotten stuck travelling for work. These were soon joined by emails from his fiancée, her best friend spilling the tea about her many admirers, and a ship captain’s extremely detailed log. Have no fear, this isn’t the work of an inventive and dedicated group of scammers – it’s the cast of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
One hundred and twenty-five years after its publication, Dracula has become the book of the summer thanks to Dracula Daily, a Substack newsletter by web developer Matt Kirkland. Told in epistolary format (through letters, journal entries and newspaper clippings) the events of Dracula take place over a six-month period from May to November. With each piece of writing accompanied by a date, the narrative can be followed in real time. This is what Dracula Daily capitalises on, releasing the novel day by day in its subscribers’ inboxes as the events unfold.
However, the newsletter is not entirely faithful to the original publication. The novel itself is not chronological. In this way, Dracula Daily is a retelling of the classic. This decision to remix the order of the novel undercuts some of the dramatic irony present in the narrative, but also increases the intimacy felt between readers and the characters. Early installments of the newsletter saw Dracula Daily trend continuously on Tumblr, with users worrying about their “best friend” and “buddy” Johnathan Harker on his business trip to Transylvania. As the weeks have gone on, I have increasingly looked forward to the daily updates from my friends in Victorian England.
This cross-time newsletter has given rise to the most popular book club on the internet. The scheduled release has thrown us back to the heyday of network television – fans gathering around the proverbial watercooler to discuss the latest revelations and share theories. The forced slow pace of this pseudo-book club has allowed plenty of time for memes to flourish. Dracula Daily has introduced a new, younger generation to the horror classic, bringing with them plenty of novelty and an abundance of enthusiasm. For example, elevating the fact that in order to maintain the ruse that he has a household of servants, Dracula secretly making Johnathan’s bed himself turns into a Fawlty Towers-esque farce. Dracula scaling the walls of his castle in “his lizard fashion” became fertile ground for fanart depicting the Count in reptilian inspired outfits. There is an infectious sense of fun surrounding each update, even as the dark machinations of the eponymous character become more apparent.
It’s not all fun and games, though. Already established Dracula fans and scholars have been encouraging a more analytical approach, offering historical context or re-examinations of the aspects that have not aged well. With gender, sexuality and race as key themes, there’s more than enough to discuss in comparing Victorian sensibilities to the modern day.
This fresh perspective highlights another stark difference between the newsletter subscribers and the book’s original audience. Dracula is a cultural touchstone, influencing almost all vampire media that came afterwards. The characters themselves are ubiquitous in pop culture. Count Dracula is the archetypal vampire, Van Helsing the quintessential vampire hunter – we know who these characters are without knowing the plot of their original story. Stoker’s audience in 1897 did not have this luxury. Much of the tension for them came from the uncertainty surrounding the Count and his intentions, whereas modern audiences are approaching the novel already armed with the knowledge that Dracula is a bloodthirsty monster. This adds a tragic element to the narrative as the reader intuitively understands the suspicious lack of mirrors in the castle and why peasants are offering Johnathan crosses.
Dracula Daily has been a delight to follow, and I cannot wait for the new cast of fictional ‘friends’ to update my inbox over the coming year. With the subscriber count jumping from 1,600 to over 200,000 between Dracula Daily’s original 2021 run and today, Matt Kirkland has successfully reanimated the classic horror novel for a new generation. But will this lead to a rise in the number of young people reading classic literature of their own volition? We’ll have to keep an eye on our inboxes…