I am writing this article on May 4th. If you don’t recognize the significance of this date, permit me to elucidate. It was on May 4th that Jonathan Harker completed his journey to the Transylvanian home of Count Dracula in the novel by Bram Stoker. This latter, published in 1897, is celebrating its 119th anniversary this year. That’s downright young by vampire standards! As pervasive and prevalent as the Dracula character has become, not just in European and American culture but to the cultures of the entire world, it’s hard to believe he’s been around for such a relatively short period of time.
In the picture above, you can see what the first edition of DRACULA looked like. Rather plain, actually, with a yellow cover, but attractive enough. It makes me think of the Italian word for Horror movies, “giallo,” which means yellow, and originated from the tendency towards the covers of pulp Horror novels in that country—as was the case in England in Stoker’s day—usually having yellow covers. In that sense, then, it’s appropriate for DRACULA to have such a cover, although it is hardly a “pulp” story. (“Pulp” is something of a synonym, here in America, for “giallo,” as they both describe the same sort of genre fiction.) At least the title is emblazoned in the appropriate bloody red. Really, how could it have been otherwise?