Since I got involved in Dracula Studies in Spring 2010, I have produced over 70 Dracula related articles, books, websites, conference presentations and photo galleries.  The time has come to create an overview and make sure that these works can be accessed from one place. You will find most of my published writings in the archive, while fresh ideas and comments will appear in the blog. For new guests, "sparknotes" ("tidbits") on my most intriguing discoveries will explain my research contributions without footnotes and guide you to the relevant texts. Welcome to the Vampire's Vault...

Hans Corneel de Roos
February 2020

Note: This website is not related to the computer game "Vault of the Vampire" in any way.

On February 27, 2024,our Kickstarter campaign for the expanded deluxe edition of the first Dracula illustrations ever was relaunched! You can pre-order in the column on the right. A new edition was necessary, as by now, the artist who created the drawings has been identified:  the painter and illustrator Emil Åberg (1864-1940). The new edition features:

• Illustrated preface by Dacre Stoker: "Bram Stoker and His Involvement in the Fine Arts"
• New illustrated introduction by Hans de Roos, with a short biography of Emil Åberg: "Emil Åberg and his Drawings for Mörkrets Makter"
• 128 pages instead of 76; 100 drawings instead of 56
• 10% larger on either side: 305 x 235 mm (11 x 9¼ inches) paper size
• 157 gsm white glossy coated art paper
• Sturdy, colored hardcover with sewn binding
• Hand-signed edition available (max. 500 copies)
• Add-on "your name printed in the book" available

MY BOOK WITH THE SWEDISH DRACULA DRAWINGS HAS BEEN PRINTED AND SHIPPED TO MY KICKSTARTER / FACEBOOK BACKERS ALREADY. A LIMITED NUMBER OF SURPLUS COPIES IS STILL AVAILABLE FOR ORDERING, ON A "FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED" BASIS.

This book contains a handpicked collection of the first Dracula illustrations ever, taken from the Swedish Dagen serialization (1899-1900). In 2017, I have obtained high-resolution scans of these pen drawings, and over the course of the years painstakingly edited them, to restore the original vigour and flow of the linework in high resolution. Moreover, I have colorized them, adding vivacity, brilliance and atmosphere. Fundamentally, the Swedish drawings deserve just as much attention as the Icelandic translation, or as Murnau's Nosferatu (1922), or Dracula with Bela Lugosi (1931)... it is the very first visualization of the Dracula story... Nothing can beat that!!

The book has colorful, matte laminated, sewn hardcover binding and 76 pages of heavy quality coated paper (157 gsm glossy). The book has a size of 280 x 216 mm (inside pages) with landscape (horizontal) orientation and weighs 613 g. It contains an illustrated essay (11 pages), 53 large-format plates in color, and three bonus pictures in black-and-white. Each picture is accompanied by the relevant text translated from the Swedish.

Since the start of July, I have been selecting phrases and paragraphs from the Swedish Dracula text to serve as captions to the illustrations. In my book, each drawing is introduced by a short heading to explain the context, followed by some paragraphs of relevant text from the Swedish Dagen version, translated to English. With this, this book of illustrations will also present the first collection of translated text from Mörkrets makter, as the Swedish version is called, after I published a translation of the Swedish preface to English and German in May 2018 in Vamped.org.

A non-compete clause in my contract with Overlook/Abrams, New York, has stopped me from creating a complete translation, but with the collection of tidbits in the planned book with drawings, my readers will at least get a first taste of the text, that presented the very first modification of Bram Stoker's famous vampire novel.

A complete translation of the Swedish text was published by Will Trimble: I contributed an introductory essay, illustrations, and helped edit the annotation. See the Kindle edition on Amazon.

Review of Dracula: An International Perspective (Palgrave, 2017),  in:  Contemporanul Ideea Europeană •  Anul XXIX •  Nr. 11 (800) • Noiembrie 2018 • Page 5 (Cronica literară)

"In this volume edited by Marius-Mircea Crişan, the most exciting text concerning the geographic background of Count Dracula is written by Hans Corneel de Roos, who locates the castle of the Count in the Călimani Mountains, with exceptional scholarly detail. While the author takes the famous map of the region in the book  by Charles Boner, Transylvania Its Products and Its People (London, 1865), as a starting point, he does not forget—and neither do the other authors—the just as famous article from 1885 by Emily Gerard, Transylvanian Superstitions (published in The Nineteenth Century), and with mathematical perfection traces  the route taken by Jonathan Harker with the post coach from Bistriţa to Prundul Bârgăului and Pasul Tihuţa, where he meets with the Count, who takes him to his castle in the area of Bilbor.

De Roos works impeccably, scientifically: he consults the notes of Bram Stoker kept in the United States, and, if necessary or appropriate, browses through an Austrian Baedeker of the year 1896, in order to calculate segments of the road and to finally understand the context.

Of course, field trips, including an exploration of the [Borgo] Pass, are taken into account as well."

Ştefan Borbelý (* Oct. 31, 1953, Făgăraş, Romania) is a Professor at the Department of World and Comparative Literature of the Faculty of Letters in Cluj, Romania (Babes-Bolyai University). He holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature (1999).