Was the Strange, Long-Lost Icelandic Version of Dracula Written by Bram Stoker Himself?

Since Bram Stoker’s Dracula was first published in 1897 it has inspired hundreds, if not thousands, of other fictional vampires. But none are quite as strange as that found in the frigid climes of Iceland. There, just a few years after Dracula was first printed, emerged a so-called translation that diverged so radically from Stoker’s that it introduced new characters, new scenes, and new themes—and yet seemed to have been published with Stoker’s blessing. People have since spent years trying to figure out how exactly this Nordic Dracula came to be—and who its true author is. It all makes for a seasonally appropriate literary mystery—one full of doppelgängers, supervillains, plot twists, and vampires who just refuse to die. In this episode, you’ll hear from Ásgeir Jónsson, literary enthusiast and Governor of the Central Bank of Iceland; Helen Zaltzman, host of The Allusionist podcast; Icelandic publishing scholar Kristján B. Jónasson; publisher Rickard Berghorn; and Benjamin Mier-Cruz, Assistant Professor of Scandinavian Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Thank you to Birna Anna Björnsdóttir, Hans Corneel de Roos, Ingmar Söhrman, Bjarni Bjarnason, and Benjamin Frisch. This episode was written by Willa Paskin and produced by Max Freedman. Our show is also produced by Alesandra Tejeda and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. Sources for This Episode Ae and Bram Stoker. Powers of Darkness, W. Trimble, 2022. Ásmundsson, Valdimar and Bram Stoker. Powers of Darkness, Abrams, 2017. Berghorn, Rickard. “Dracula’s Swedish Cousin: A Great Literary Mystery,” Powers of Darkness: The Unique Version of Dracula, Timaios Press, 2022. Bjarnson, Bjarni. “Venus Helena,” Skírnir, Hið íslenska bókmenntafélag, 2017. Brundan, Katy, Melanie Jones and Benjamin Mier-Cruz. “Dracula or Draculitz?” Victorian Review, 2019. de Roos, Hans Corneel. “Mörkrets Makter’s Mini-Mysteries,” Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov, 2021. de Roos, Hans Corneel. “The Berghorn Supremacy: Fouls and Offsides in the Debate about the Nordic Versions of Dracula,” VampVault, 2024. Guðjónsson, Kristján. “Gerir sjónvarpsþætti um Drakúla,” DV, Feb. 17, 2017. Jakobsson, Ármann. “The Fearless Vampire Killers: A Note about the Icelandic Draugr and Demonic Contamination in Grettis Saga,” Folklore, Dec. 2009. Jakobsson, Ármann. “Vampires and Watchmen: Categorizing the Mediaeval Icelandic Undead,” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, July 2011. Jónsson, Ásgeir. “Makt Myrkranna: Drakúla Greifi Á Íslandi,” Vísbending, 2011. The Powers of Darkness podcast, 2026. Skal, David J.. Something in the Blood, Liveright, 2016. Söhrman, Ingmar. “Scandinavian Transformations of Dracula,” Nordic Journal of English Studies, 2020. Stoker, Bram. Dracula, Doubleday, 1897. Wilson, Katharina. “The History of the Word ‘Vampire’,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 1985. Zaltzman, Helen. “Draculae part 1: Enter the Castle,” The Allusionist, May 11, 2026.