TIL The Icelandic translation of Dracula, Makt Myrkanna, or Powers of Darkness, published in 1901, differs significantly from the English version and no one noticed until 2014.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers_of_Darkness_(Iceland)

It seems like it is based on a combination of an earlier draft of the novel and the translator's own ideas, because it contains things that were in Stoker's notes but not in the final manuscript, and a lot of Scandinavian mythology is added. It is more overtly erotic and political as well.

159 points · 11 comments · view on lemmy.world

11 Comments

Z4XC@lemmy.world · 36 pts · 1y (2 replies)

So is there an English version of the Icelandic version?

AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net · 18 pts · 1y (1 reply)

There is indeed! It's one of the things that makes this such a humourous story

Edit: https://archive.org/details/powersofdarkness0000vald Here it is! Enjoy (even if one's enjoyment is just in knowing that this exists)

Cort@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 1y

This is probably going to sound like a stupid question, but did anyone actually check to make sure there weren't any major deviations in the English translation of the Icelandic version?

ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works · 12 pts · 1y (5 replies)

More overtly erotic? How is that possible, unless there's a sex scene?

FlyingSquid@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 1y (3 replies)

Fleming noted that in Dracula, Stoker worked in subtle sexual references to serve as metaphors for "...deeper, dark concepts: the idea of an antichrist, the blood-sucking serving as a compelling, hellish inversion of communion. Makt Myrkranna, conversely, could have had the subtitle Lust in a Cape".[21] In Makt Myrkranna, Harker has an obsession with breasts as he speaks frequently of the "bosom" of various women he encounters in Transylvania.[21]

ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works · 14 pts · 1y (1 reply)

I guess I'll have to learn Icelandic then. It's a shame that there's no easier way to access vampire erotica.

AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net · 6 pts · 1y

It has been translated into English (this translation is dated 2017)

However, far be it from me too discourage anyone from learning a language. After all, what better exemplifies the fallibility of translation than this story?

Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee · 5 pts · 1y

Having been to Iceland, I can understand the obsession.

jpreston2005@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1y

Adding to OPs note:

In Makt Myrkranna, Dracula comes to England not alone, but rather with a deaf-dumb woman who is apparently his slave and together with another beautiful aristocratic female vampire, Josephine, who flaunts her sexuality.[20] Josephine is described as having her "neck and upper chest revealed" while wearing a "necklace of glittering diamonds", whom Harker finds "something indecent" about, despite his evident attraction to her.

AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works · 10 pts · 1y (1 reply)

That's one way to get people reading your novel, I suppose.

SquiffSquiff@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1y

Happens with TV shows all the time