Dracula Returns

Some of you may know that I have a bit of a soft spot in my heart for Bram Stoker's Dracula. My sister's and I all own copies, and playing Renfield in my high school play continues to rank highly as one of my most enjoyable and rewarding theatrical experiences. When my sister got married I gave her a copy of Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne and inscribed it with a quote from Dracula (an appropriate quote for such an occasion, I might add).

And yet somehow I've missed this big news in the world of Dracula until just now: Stoker's great grand-nephew is writing a sequel with historian Ian Holt! The rights sold for $1m, and a movie starts production in June. From an article in the Guardian:

Dacre Stoker delved into his ancestor's handwritten notes on the original Dracula novel to pen his sequel, Dracula: The Un-Dead - the original name for Dracula before an editor changed the title. The novel, out next October, draws on excised characters, existing character back-stories and plot threads that were cut from Stoker's original novel, first published 111 years ago.

The plot blurb sounds pretty great too:

The new book is set in London in 1912, a quarter of a century after the Count apparently "crumbled into dust". Vampire-hunter Van Helsing's protégé Dr Seward is now a disgraced morphine addict, and Quincey, the son of Stoker's hero Jonathan, has become involved in a troubled theatre production of Dracula, directed and produced by Bram Stoker himself. The play plunges Quincey into the world of his parents' terrible secrets, but before he can confront them his father is found murdered, impaled in Piccadilly Circus.

I can't wait!