Who are the most famous fictional characters? The answers may vary,
according to your choice of reading, from Don Quixote to Jeeves to
Tintin to Harry Potter. But as to the most pervasive, it can only be
these two late-Victorian era creations whose original works never lost
popularity while they also went on to feature in many adaptations across
all media: books, films, TV shows, plays but also video games, comics,
cartoons and rock songs. They are also the most well-known of their kind
- be it a detective or a vampire.
Scottish physician-cum author
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Irish author Abraham 'Bram'
Stoker's Count Dracula appeared a decade apart in 1887 and 1897
respectively. Since then, both have gone far beyond the original 56
stories and four novels featuring the cerebral but quirky detective and
the single novel and one story the suave, menacing but blood-thirsty
aristocrat flits through to leave their lasting imprint on culture.
Though
not their genres' pioneers - Edgar Allan Poe's Auguste Dupin and Émile
Gaboriau's Monsieur Lecoq preceded Holmes, while Dracula was the latest
of the 19th century's literary vampires (after Lord Ruthven of John
Polidori's "The Vampyre", 1819; Sir Francis Varney of James Malcolm
Rymer's "Varney the Vampire; or, the Feast of Blood", serialised
1845-47; and Carmilla in Sheridan Le Fanu's 1871 eponymous novella) -
both have become a template and are popular for writers - established
and new - to test their skills upon.
Among those who have created
all kinds of new adventures - both pastiche and parody - for the sleuth
of Baker Street are Boris Akunin (of Tsarist-era detective Erast
Fandorin fame), Poul Anderson (of "Time Patrol" stories), Jeffery
Deaver, Colin Dexter (Inspector Morse's creator), Stephen King, Neil
Gaiman, Vonda N. McIntyre (known for Star Trek novelisations) and
Tibetan author Jamyang Norbu.
As for Dracula, Valdimar
Ãsmundsson, in his 1901 Icelandic version of Stoker's work, rewrote it
to introduce more characters including a host of villainous aristocrats,
Kim Newman brings him into popular culture with his "Anno Dracula"
series, Dacre Stoker's "Dracula the Un-dead" (co-written with
screenwriter Ian Holt) is a sequel to his great grand-uncle's work, and
Freda Warrington's "Dracula the Undead" is an unofficial sequel. Fred
Saberhagen, in his "Dracula Tape" and subsequent works, tells the story
from the count's point of view, and Elizabeth Kostova in her eerie "The
Historian" presents parallel (but connected) accounts of several
scholars whose research has led them too close to Dracula as they hunt
him across a few tumultuous decades of 20th century Europe.
While
Dracula in his new outings is more or less the same, Holmes' new
exploits can be divided into those reprising the conventional style or
those which either add a supernatural tinge or introduce real and
fictional contemporary characters - Theodore Roosevelt, Sigmund Freud,
Jack the Ripper or even Dr Jekyll (and Mr Hyde), Prof Challenger (from
'The Lost World"), Fantomas and others.
Does one see together the
two polar opposites - one embodying reason and the spirit of inquiry,
and dedicated to solving conundrums and crimes, and the other, a dark
supernatural creature representing terror and lust and only bent on
satiating his unearthly thirst. Holmes' view is characteristic - and
unambiguous: "Rubbish, Watson, rubbish! What have we to do with walking
corpses who can only be held in their grave by stakes driven through
their hearts? It's pure lunacy" ('The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire'
from "The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes")
But at least half a dozen writers have risen to this challenge.
The
sub-genre's first is a tie between Loren D. Estleman's "Sherlock Holmes
vs. Dracula: The Adventures of the Sanguinary Count" and Saberhagen's
"The Holmes-Dracula File" (both published in 1978). While the first adds
Holmes to the matrix of Stoker's novel from the time the count arrives
in England and sees the detective join the struggle against his
diabolical machinations till Dracula is driven away after which the
story follows its existing course, the second subverts established order
by both combining forces to foil a terror plot in 1897 London.
Saberhagen's
"Seance for a Vampire" (1994) brings both together again and sees them
travel up to Russia (where they encounter Rasputin) while David Stuart
Davies' "The Tangled Skein" (1995) breaks new ground, drawing Holmes
(aided by Van Helsing) back to desolate Dartmoor (scene of "Hound of the
Baskervilles") to battle Dracula.
Then there is Christian
Klaver's novella "The Adventure of the Solitary Grave" (2009) and Gerry
O'Hara's "Sherlock Holmes and the Affair in Transylvania" (2011), where
Holmes travels to Castle Dracula.
Despite being centenarians,
both the characters haven't lost potential for new interpretations and
seem set to rule imagination for at least another century!
(15.02.2015
- Vikas Datta is an Associate Editor at IANS. The views expressed are
personal. He can be contacted at [email protected] )
