The Historian

“My great hope in making this story public is that it may find at least one reader who will understand it for what it actually is: a cri de coeur.”

In “A Note to the Reader,” the narrator admits the dangers in writing her story down; through the course of the novel, the reader will discover that anyone who studies Dracula—as the reader has just spent many pages ostensibly doing—puts themselves in harm’s way. Still, the narrator makes her impassioned appeal, implicating the reader in this story: Perhaps Dracula can be stopped, if his true history is known. This quote also speaks to The Perils of Inheritance.

“Across those two pages I saw a great woodcut of a dragon with spread wings and a long looped tail, a beast unfurled and raging, claws outstretched. In the dragon’s claws hung a banner on which ran a single word in Gothic lettering: DRAKULYA.”

The narrator’s father, Paul, is bequeathed an antiquated book with this dragon at its center; his is one of many copies that appear, uncannily, throughout the book. The dragon is not just a symbol of Dracula but also representative of the long and dangerous reach of history.

“What could offer better protection against the forces of darkness—internal, external, eternal—than light and warmth, as one approaches the shortest, coldest day of the year?”

In Rossi’s first letter to his unknown successor (it turns out to be his student, Paul), he uses the juxtaposition of dark and light to express not only the physical experience of darkness (and cold) but also the moral experience of darkness (and despair). This serves as a common motif throughout.