#bramstoker — Public Fediverse posts

It was a shock to me to turn from the wonderful smoky beauty of a sunset over London, with its lurid lights and inky shadows and all the marvellous tints that come on foul clouds even as on foul water, and to realise all the grim sternness of my own cold stone building, with its wealth of breathing misery, and my own desolate heart to endure it all.
#Dracula #BramStoker #DraculaDaily #ReDracula

#RecomendaciónLiteraria

Drácula, Bram Stoker

Esta novela gótica publicada en 1897 define el mito del vampiro moderno a través de una estructura de diarios, cartas y recortes de prensa que le otorgan un realismo sobrecogedor. La trama sigue el viaje del abogado Jonathan Harker al castillo del conde Drácula en los Cárpatos, detonando una invasión silenciosa hacia la ciudad de Londres que pone en peligro la vida de su prometida Mina. Lejos de las versiones cinematográficas de acción, el texto original se sostiene en una atmósfera de horror psicológico, la invasión de lo antiguo en el mundo moderno y el esfuerzo de un grupo de amigos guiados por el profesor Van Helsing para destruir a la criatura mediante el uso de la lógica, diarios compartidos y herramientas científicas de la época.

— A. Eldritch, Periodista, Locutor, podcaster y bloger del fediverso

Alt text via @altbot y @TeLoDescribot

#Libros #Literatura #Terror #Drácula #BramStoker

Podcast Episode: ROCK DEDICATION: He Never Died (Dedicated to JEFFREY

https://dwellerofthedark.com/2026/08/08/podcast-episode-rock-dedication-he-never-died-dedicated-to-jeffrey/

ROCK DEDICATION: He Never Died (Dedicated to JEFFREY JAMES LEBLANC, SR.)

https://dwellerofthedark.com/2026/08/08/rock-dedication-he-never-died-dedicated-to-jeffrey-james-leblanc-sr/

We seem to be drifting to some terrible doom.
#Dracula #ReDracula #DraculaDaily #BramStoker

🎞️ CINE 🎞️
Lo bueno de ver las películas a mi ritmo, es que me abstraigo de todo el ruido mediático de las redes y me centro en disfrutar con la mente abierta.
Visto el #Drácula de Luc Besson, y decir que ME HA ENCANTADO.
La comparación con la de Coppola es inevitable, y Besson (sabedor de su vigencia tres décadas después) no oculta su influencia en momentos puntuales, pero en vez de repetirla, opta por llevar la obra a su propio terreno, exacerbar el romanticismo y darle una visión mucho más “europea”.
Aquí las referencias son, sobre todo, los cuentos de hadas de su tierra natal, tanto en sus versiones literarias como en las filmadas: “Piel de asno”, “La bella y la bestia”, “El jorobado de Notre Dame” (tanto la original de Victor Hugo como, incluso, la versión Disney)… Pero también se permite acudir a obras foráneas como “El perfume” de Süskind y el cine fantástico-folclórico de la Europa del Este de los 60 (con el clásico de culto “Viy” de 1967 a la cabeza).
Si tiene sentido seguir adaptando la obra de Stoker tras cientos de versiones, es para aportar cosas nuevas, frescas, arriesgadas… y en eso nadie puede negar que Besson cumple con creces.
Sobra decir que el apartado visual es tan potente como cabría esperar, sin desmerecer tampoco al interpretativo.
9/10
.
#cine #movies #películas #dracula #vampiros #vampires #books #libros #france #french #bramstoker #literature

MYTHOS MAYHEM: ‘Nyarlathotep’ by H.P. Lovecraft (Featuring ‘Nyarlathotep the Yellow King’)

https://dwellerofthedark.com/2026/07/13/mythos-mayhem-nyarlathotep-by-h-p-lovecraft-featuring-nyarlathotep-the-yellow-king/

VAMPIRE HORROR: ‘The Strigae’ by Marcel Schwob

https://dwellerofthedark.com/2026/07/13/vampire-horror-the-strigae-by-marcel-schwob/

ALIEN SCIENCE FICTION HORROR: ‘Nasty Thing Inside’ by DAVE SMITH

https://dwellerofthedark.com/2026/07/13/alien-science-fiction-horror-nasty-thing-inside-by-dave-smith/

HORROR MASTER INTERVIEW: Alex Grass (Author of A BOY’S HAMMER, INFERNAL TRAMPS and Many More!)

https://dwellerofthedark.com/2026/07/13/horror-master-interview-alex-grass-author-of-a-boys-hammer-infernal-tramps-and-many-more/

No se los voy a recomendar ni ná, pero acabé emputado de haber perdido tanto tiempo con este par de noveluchas, y quería desquitarme sacándoles provecho de algún modo. Entonces pensé que sería divertido darles aquí un resumen despotricado.

#libros #literatura #horror #bramstoker

https://www.maikciveira.com/2020/12/por-que-no-hay-que-leer-bram-stoker.html?m=1

Then I saw the trailers and my stance eased based on the beauty of those visuals.

I watched the uncut version of Robert Eggers' remake last night, and it was enjoyable enough.

Beautifully shot, and fairly well told, the remake doesn't fundamentally offer anything new but modernity for its own sake.

It won't deeply influence the future of the genre as the original has done, and continues to do.

#Nosferatu #movie #movies #film #cinema #horror #Dracula #vampire #vampyr #Stoker #BramStoker

When I first learned that there was going to be a remake of Nosferatu, I got pissed.

I had seen a presentation sponsored by the Goethe-Institut Washington, in D.C., in a small theater on the National Mall with live music back in the early 2000's and loved it.

For me, a remake seemed not just unnecessary, but utterly hubristic given the historical significance of the original.

#Nosferatu #movie #movies #film #cinema #horror #Dracula #vampire #vampyr #Stoker #BramStoker

What shall I do? What can I do? How can I escape from this dreadful thing of night and gloom and fear?
#Dracula #DraculaDaily #ReDracula #BramStoker

I devoured classic novels as a teenager. In a world of distractions, can I relearn how to read them? https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jun/02/classic-novels-relearn-how-to-read-distractions-screens #Books #Fiction #Classics #CharlesDickens #ThomasHardy #GeorgeEliot #BramStoker #LaurenceSterne #Culture

“Despair has its own calms.”
#Dracula #DraculaDaily #ReDracula #BramStoker

“[Mike] Shepherd… believes the author deliberately pinpointed Cruden Bay, north of Aberdeen—then called Port Erroll, a small fishing village with a sandy beach & a windswept cliff-top fort named Slains Castle—as a retreat where he could concentrate on his writing”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/oct/09/cutting-his-teeth-how-bram-stoker-found-his-inner-dracula-in-scotland

#Scotland #literature #BramStoker #Drakula #DraculaDay

Mrs Bram Stoker’s recipe for “Dracula Salad” – a bit of an oxymoron? – published in CRUDEN RECIPES & WRINKLES (Cruden Parish Church, 1912), & contributed shortly after Bram Stoker’s death. Via Mike Shepherd on Facebook
🧛‍♂️

https://www.facebook.com/groups/scotlit/posts/10161485849160090/

#Literature #Dracula #recipes #salad #DraculaDay #BramStoker

Today is Dracula Day.

Some monsters never die 🧛‍♀️
Bram Stoker gave the world more than a vampire. He created a shadow that still follows us through books, films, dreams, and nightmares.

#DraculaDay #Dracula #BramStoker #Stoker #books #vampire #literature #reading #today #onthisday #bookstodon @bookstodon #booksky #BookTok #readers #novel #horror #horrorbooks #bookstagram

“I am surely in the toils.”
#Dracula #DraculaDaily #ReDracula #BramStoker

“It is nineteenth century up-to-date with a vengeance. And yet, unless my senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have, powers of their own which mere ‘modernity’ cannot kill.”
#Dracula #DraculaDaily #ReDracula #BramStoker

Plunder, Mystery, and Intrigue: Visiting the British Museum and the British Library

After leaving the Lake District, I traveled to London by train, for the third part of my trip. This was where I saw the most libraries during my trip. On my last day in London, August 3rd, I visited the British Museum, located in London’s West End, which was overcrowded with tourists. This made viewing the so-called “chronicle of Western collection,” which was acquired through extensive plunder and theft, as American tour guide Rick Steves describes the museum, very uncomfortable. Even so, there were two highlights. The first was the stately and round reading room. English writers Virginia Woolf and Beatrix Potter, Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen, radical thinkers Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, Black nationalist Marcus Garvey, women’s rights campaigner Sylvia Pankhurst, independence activist Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Irish author Bram Stoker all studied there.

Note: This serves as second part of my series on this blog about my library tourism last year, with the first part, about my attempted and successful library tourism in Edinburgh and Northern England, posted on this blog last week. The series begins, chronologically, with my guest post on Reel Librarians, on February 11th, in a post entitled “Edinburgh and the National Library of Scotland: Library tourism redux.” It will be reposted on here over a month later. There will be one more parts of this series, focusing on my continued library tourism in Belgium coming next week.

Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, as noted in Doyle’s “The Complete Sherlock Holmes,” studied in the reading room. In the 1893 short story “The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual” (sometimes abbreviated as “The Musgrave Ritual”), he studied “those branches of science which might make me more efficient” in the reading room. He learned other information from the British Museum in chapter 15 of 1902 novel The Hound of the Baskervilles and “The Tiger of San Pedro” chapter, within a 1917 collection entitled His Last Bow: Some Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes (sometimes abbreviated as “His Last Bow”). There are mentions of libraries in the short stories “The Five Orange Pips”, “The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb”, and “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet” in the 1892 short story collection The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

The same is the case for “The Musgrave Ritual,” “The ‘Gloria Scott’”, and “The Reigate Squires” all within the 1893 short story collection The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, and the stories “The Adventures of the Three Students” and “The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez” in the 1905 short story collection The Return of Sherlock Holmes. Apart from that, chapter 10 of The Hound of the Baskervilles, chapter 7 of the 1915 novel The Valley of Fear, and the story “The Problem of Thorn Bridge” in the 1927 set of short stories The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes feature libraries as well. Lastly, there’s a mention of a London Library in St. James’s Square and Lomax, who is said to be a “sublibrarian,” in “The Illustrious Client.” This is another short story within The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes.

In an email communication, Nathalie Belkin, an archivist who works for the London Library, told me that Doyle was a library member, joining in 1896 after his friend, and fellow writer, Arthur Griffith, nominated him. According to Belkin, Doyle was an active library user, even serving on the library’s committee. In fact, it is believed that The Illustrious Client, also entitled The Adventure of the Illustrious Client, was written in the library’s main reading room. While the borrowing history from the time has been lost, he was a “well-known fixture” of the library.

Otherwise, Karl Marx formulated ideas on communism, including within Das Kapital (also known as Capital), in the aforementioned reading room within the British Museum. Displays within the room describe it as a place for diverse thought. Many patrons left behind their mark in the visitors log. It was even one of the first places in London to have electric light (in 1879)! The room could, at maximum, hold 302 readers sitting at 38 tables, sitting across from each other, and was heated from underneath. Readers would consult a catalogue of printed books in the room’s center, then fill out a request form. In some ways, this makes this room similar to the Library of Congress’s Reading Room, since books for the British Library could be accessed there until they were moved to their current location in 1997. In fact, 62,000 people came when this reading room opened in 1857. A sign, when looking into the reading room, tells visitors to be quiet, feeding into the common conception of libraries as quiet places, which is not always the case for all libraries anymore.

What Rick Steves didn’t mention is that the historic reading room only re-opened to the public in 2024 after being closed for eleven years. The room was designed by Sydney Smirke, inspired by Rome’s domed Pantheon, and opened in 1857. It first re-opened to visitors in 2000 (after it stopped being an active reading room in 1997), then closed in 2013, when it was used for archival storage. The room, described by some as “legendary,” “stunning,” and an impressive sight for bibliophiles (protagonist and book-defender Elianna Bernstein of Bibliophile Princess would be right at home there) is not technically a library anymore. You can’t borrow any of the 25,000 books, and photography is now permitted (it wasn’t previously). Even so, it is still a marvel to see. You can even go on a twenty-minute tour there and there is currently a plan to completely transform the galleries and reading room.

The second highlight was the Enlightenment Gallery, formerly known as the King’s Library. It once held the British Library’s treasures when it was founded in 1753. Today it holds objects about the Age of Enlightenment, as Rick Steves notes. A display board, when you enter the room, says that it was developed in partnership with the House of Commons Library and the Natural History Museum. The current books on display are being loaned from the House of Commons Library. The aforementioned display notes that those who lent non-book artifacts to the gallery included the British King, the Science Museum in London, King’s College in London, Wellcome Collection, Society of Antiquities of London, Victor and Albert Museum, the Linnean Society of London, and the Royal Asiatic Society (also in London). Of these institutions, most have their own libraries. In fact, the D. Leonard Corgan Library at Kings College, the college’s main library, served as a location in Dan Brown’s controversial novel The Da Vinci Code. The building’s exterior appeared in the 2020 film Enola Holmes, a mystery film about Sherlock Holmes’ teenage sister.

The room itself was originally created, in 1823, to house King George II’s library, hence the original name. It was designed by architect Robert Smirke, known for the British Museum’s main facade and block, along with various clubs and houses within London. Of these, the Inner Temple, for which he did some work on, has a library, which continues to operate to this day, as did Bickley Hall. Smike also completed building restoration of the Bodleian Library’s Upper Reading room, which is part of the “old library.” As for the Enlightenment Gallery, it has a Greek Revival design, with neoclassical decoration. It’s said to be in keeping with the “styles of libraries in grand houses all over Britain” at the time, with claims it has echoes of “ancient wisdom and learning.” In 1998, the British Library moved to a new location across from the current St. Pancras station. The latter is not to be confused with pancreas or the Japanese anime film which centers on libraries and librarians, entitled I Want to Eat Your Pancreas. It is far too easy to call it “pancreas” by mistake, a name that almost stuck with me.

This gallery is where thousands of objects can be viewed and serves as an introduction to the British Museum’s collections. Even so, for me, I visited it at the end of my time at the overcrowded museum. I was inspired to visit this room by one particular scene in the December 2011 anime film, K-On! the Movie, a spinoff from the 2009-2010 anime series, K-On!. It features two episodes with libraries, including one about studying in the library and featuring a student librarian at an information desk. In fact, I rewatched this film before my trip to London, just for this scene. During the film, Yui Hirasawa, Ritsu Tainaka, Mio Akiyama, Azusa Nakano, and Tsumugi Kotobuki bop around London, visiting many sites, including walking through the strangely empty Great Court of the British Museum. They make their way into the gallery. During a short scene, Azusa points out that the Rosetta Stone (she put it on their itinerary) is also a replica. In fact, they used a replica in a school play as the death stone for a Romeo & Juliet play, because the fake tombstone they wanted to use had been misplaced.

The British Museum also has the actual Rosetta Stone in the Egyptian sculpture room, but like Yui, Ritsu, Mio, Azusa, and Tsumugi, I only looked at and touched the replica. The aforementioned gallery likely would have been overcrowded, as the gallery rooms I visited were extremely overcrowded and not suited for visitors. They had inadequate airflow and no overhead fans. As for the film, there were a few other short library scenes in the private all-girls school the protagonists attend, Sakuragaoka High School.

The same day I visited the British Museum, I visited the British Library. It sits across from St. Pancras station, and would be the last library I visited in the U.K. As Rick Steves put it, the British empire built its “greatest monuments out of paper.” The library holds every publication within the U.K. and Northern Ireland, with over 170 million items, such as sacred texts, maps, the Magna Carta, Leonardo Da Vinci’s notebook, plays by William Shakespeare, and lyrics of songs by the Beatles. This library, established by an act of Parliament in July 1972 and opened in July 1973, is one of the biggest in the world. It’s only rivaled by the Library of Congress, Russian State Library in Moscow, or Shanghai Library in China. Many such institutions are the legal deposit libraries for their respective countries. Anyone is open to explore the British Library reading rooms and peruse exhibits. You can get a readers registration pass if you are over 18, allowing you to enter the reading rooms.

When I visited, on August 3rd, the reading rooms for humanities, manuscripts, rare books, music, science, maps, and Asian and African studies, were not open. I even saw rooms reserved for the sole purpose of prayer, and went through the “Treasures of the British Library” exhibit in the St. John Ritblat Gallery. It contained many of the artifacts I noted in the previous paragraph. Perhaps because they have the space, the British Library holds the library collections of the British Museum. Rare books fill the middle of the library in a massive climate-controlled column, allowing the upper floors to only be accessed by stairs or elevators, and affecting the structure of each floor. There was also a fascinating collection of foreign currency, stamps, and other postage from former British colonies, called the Philatelic Collection. It could be easily overlooked, but was fun to look through, especially in the way it was displayed.

Like the British museums I visited during my travels, they asked for a donation, but they were free to enter, without payment or restriction. The number of visitors using the study area made clear that they were open to all, in line with library ethical principles, as did the books in their bookshop, some of which would likely be on banned books lists of in U.S. libraries. In the next part of this series, I’ll talk briefly about the university library I visited in Belgium.

© 2025-2026 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

Sources used

• “About this Reading Room,” Library of Congress, 2025.
• “About Us,” British Library, 2025.
• “About us,” House of Commons Library, 2025.
• “About us,” Royal Asiatic Society, 2025.
• “About us,” Wellcome Collection, 2025.
• “Archives,” London Library, 2025.
• Barker, Sam. “The British Museum’s Secretive Round Reading Room Has Reopened To The Public,” Secret London, 4 Jul. 2024.
• “Bickley,” Wikishire, 13 Jul. 2025.
• “D. Leonard Corgan Library,” Kings College, 2025.
• “Dana Research Centre and Library,” Science Museum, 2025.
• “Everything you ever wanted to know about the Rosetta Stone,” British Museum, 2025.
• Fox, Caroline. “Every Enola Holmes Filming Location (And What Every Place Looks Like Now),” ScreenRant, 26 Oct. 2020.
• Funk, Alex. “The British Museum’s mysterious domed Reading Room has officially reopened to the public,” TimeOut, 3 Jul. 2024.
• Hermann, Burkely. “Librarians and libraries in anime,” Pop Culture Library Review, 2025 (orig. 25 Jul. 2020).
• Hermann, Burkely. “More than a coming-of-age drama: The value of libraries and librarians in “I Want To Eat Your Pancreas”,” Pop Culture Library Review, 8 Jan. 2024.
• Hermann, Burkely. “Recently added titles (March 2025),” Pop Culture Library Review, 2 Apr. 2025.
• Hermann, Burkely. “The fictional library and the value of studying redux,” Pop Culture Library Review, 30 Jul. 2024.
• Hickley, Catherine. “British Museum’s historic Reading Room opens to the public after 11 years,” The Art Newspaper, 3 Jul. 2024.
• “History of The London Library,” London Library, 2025.
• “Library,” Linnean Society of London, 2025.
• “Library & Collections,” Society of Antiquities of London, 2024.
• Mathur, Rhea. “The British Museum’s Reading Room: Past and Present,” gowithyamo, 2 Sept. 2024.
• Moran, Sarah. “The British Museum’s Stunning Domed Reading Room Reopens to Public,” Home Journal, 27 Sept. 2024.
• “National Art Library,” Victor and Albert Museum, 2025.
• “Philatelic Collections: Introduction,” British Library, 29 Mar. 2010.
• Hermann, Burkely. “Remembering “Bibliophile Princess” and its significant fictional depiction of libraries,” Pop Culture Library Review, 14 May 2024.
• “Spaces at the Bodleian Old Library,” Bodleian Library, 2025.
• “Spotlight: the Reading Room,” British Museum, 2025.
• Steves, Rick and Openshaw, Gene. London (24th Edition, US: Avalon Travel, Sept. 2022): 212, 214-215, 236, 238, 240, 244-247, 249.
• “Strand Campus: Self-guided tour,” King’s College, 5 Oct. 2014, p. 8.
•  “The British Library Philatelic Collection,” The Royal Philatelic Society London, Nov. 2005.
• “The Present Buildings,” Inner Temple Library, 2025.
• “Treasures of the British Library,” British Library, 2025.
• “Update on progress with the Masterplan,” British Museum, 19 Dec. 2024.

#AncientEgypt #archives #ArthurConanDoyle #artifacts #BeatrixPotter #Belgium #BibliophilePrincess #BlackPatrons #BlackPeople #BramStoker #BritishLibrary #BritishMuseum #China #ChinesePatrons #colonialism #communism #electricity #EnolaHolmes #HouseOfCommonsLibrary #JapanesePatrons #JenniferSnoekBrown #KOn #KOnTheMovie #KarlMarx #LibraryOfCongress #libraryStereotypes #libraryTourism #LondonLibrary #MarcusGarvey #MohandasKGandhi #quiet #railroads #reading #ReelLibrarians #restrictions #RickSteves #RosettaStone #royalLibraries #royalty #Russia #RussianStateLibrary #ShanghaiLibrary #SherlockHolmes #SunYatSen #SylviaPankhurst #TheBeatles #TheDaVinciCode #TheIllustriousClient #trains #VirginiaWoolf #WhiteLibrarians #WhiteMen #WhitePatrons

#ScribesAndMakers 25 July 2025
Create a multiple choices poll listing 3 books you personally consider “classics” and ask others to choose the ones they have read. Create a fourth option for None of the Above.

#BramStoker #StephenKing #HarperLee #Carrie #Dracula #ToKillAMockingbird #reading #Lesen #bookstodon

ADORO IL GENIO - DANNATO DENTISTA!

Che accade?

#adoroilgenio #8settembre #crodino #favole #romanzi #horror #goth #gotico #drink #analcolico #bramstoker #dracula #mostri #vampiri #frankenstein #maryshelley #commercials #spot #SpotTV #storia #ad #comunicazione #adv #advertising #pubblicita #pubblicità #cinema #storiedimostri