June 23, 2017

From the Creators of "Sherlock": A New Version of "Dracula"

Sherlock creators Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat are turning to an interpretation of Bram Stoker's Dracula  as their next project. Given that Sherlock  was quite an interesting contemporarization (is that a word?) of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories,  I'm looking forward to seeing what the pair does with Dracula. 

A lawyer plays a prominent role in the story--solicitor Jonathan Harker is initially involved in a property transaction for the Count, and things only get murkier from there. Read the text here (courtesy of Project Gutenberg).

There have been a few adaptations fairly recently of Dracula for tv and film, including the 1979 John Badham directed version with Frank Langella, the 1992 Francis Ford Coppola film treatment with Gary Oldman, the 2013 10 episode tv adaptation with Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and 1973's Philip Saville-directed Count Dracula starring Louis Jourdan (be still, my heart--my favorite version). Check IMDB.com for more interpretations, adaptations, and continuations of the Dracula legend.

Selected Readings

Maria Aristodemou, Casting Light On Dracula: Studies in Law and Culture, 56 Modern Law Review 760 (September 1993).

A. McGillivray, He Would Have Made a Wonderful Solicitor: Law, Modernity, and Professionalism in Bram Stoker's Dracula, in Lawyers and Vampires 225 (David Sugarman and W. Wesley Pue, eds., Hart Publishing, 2004).

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