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.
So is there an English version of the Icelandic version?
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)
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?
More overtly erotic? How is that possible, unless there’s a sex scene?
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]
I guess I’ll have to learn Icelandic then. It’s a shame that there’s no easier way to access vampire erotica.
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?
Having been to Iceland, I can understand the obsession.
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.
That’s one way to get people reading your novel, I suppose.
Happens with TV shows all the time
