#Did I mention this is Thomas Harker not Jonathan?

[doctorloup]

So I found an English translation of Icelandic Dracula

This shit is truly unhinged. I've just got to the point where Dracula is straight up saying it's unclassy for a noble Transylvanian to get mad when his hot cousin wife takes a himbo peasant lover because these things should be expected, you know?

Also apparently I still hear all written Dracula dialogue in @bullshotuk's voice in my head.

[paperandsong]

The Phonograph in the Gothic

The phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison, twenty years before Dracula was published. The phonograph is important as Dr. Seward’s principle method of recording his observations of his work in the asylum and his involvement in the strange and tragic case of Lucy Westenra. He later shares those recordings with Mina Harker as she shares with him her own typed-out journal and that of her husband, Jonathan. 

I find it interesting that Mina has never seen a phonograph until that meeting with Seward. Seward himself sometimes used Lucy’s phonograph while he was treating her as his patient. Perhaps this is a marker of the class difference between Seward, Lucy, and Mina? 

Seward laments the fact that he cannot locate the specific sections of the wax cylinder which may be most relevant to Mina’s interest (the Lucy sections!). Which makes me wonder, why did he use this method at all?  I don’t see how this could be helpful for a doctor treating patients as he couldn’t easily refer to past observations. Was it just easier for him than writing a journal by hand? Did he simply like the novelty of it? Maybe he never intended to listen to it himself and was merely recording for posterity, not realizing how soon the recordings would be needed.  

But it’s easy to see why Stoker would include the technology in his Gothic novel. Although the phonograph had already been around for two decades, it was not yet ubiquitous - Mina had never seen one. And there is something eerie about hearing disembodied voices even today, when it has long since become commonplace. The quality of the recordings on wax cylinders was poor, distorting voice and memory simultaneously. Here’s a great essay on the phonograph in Dracula: His Master’s Voice. 

It is not a surprise that, among other shared details, Leroux also makes mention of phonographic recordings in the introduction to his novel, the Phantom of the Opera.

The corpse isn’t real - but the recordings are. They were sealed in a vault under the Palais Garnier on December 24, 1907 (see photo above), less than two years before the Phantom of the Opera first appeared in Le Gaulois. This is a great example of how Leroux masterfully mixes fiction with fact, making it so easy to believe the entire story is true. Because those wax cylinders really exist, this probably isn’t an overt reference to Dracula the way the Tokay most likely is. But it’s still fun to make these connections. 

When Guillermo del Toro wrote this scene for Crimson Peak, was he making a reference to Dracula? Are there other examples of the phonograph in Gothic literature and film? Feel free to make additions.