Well, to cut a longish story short, about 10 years ago
I was writing a paper on the use of folklore in the
ghost stories of M R James (early 20th C) and
discovered there was a society with a newsleter called
'Ghosts & Scholars' devoted to his works, and those of
related writers.
At a G&S meeting, a year or two later, I then met two
members who were handing out material about the
Dracula Society. They were intelligent and sane, and I
discovered that the emphasis in this paricular society
is on the literary, theatrical, cinematic history of
the image of Dracula (and Frankenstein, Mummies, etc).
Some members do occasionally dress up (e.g. for the
annual dinner), but they're not primarily interested
in playing at Gothicism themselves. Also, every other
year they organise tours of places related to either
the 'real-life' Dracula, i.e. Vlad Dracul the Impaler,
or to places mentioned in the novel and films, or to
Bram Stoker's life. As I'd never travelled in these4
exotic places, and am too old to venture on my own, I
have joined two of their tours; One was in Hungary and
Slovenia (or do I mean Slovakia?), the other in
Romania. This year's jaunt was to Egypt for the Mummy
theme, but I didn't go; clambering about inside
pyramids is not for me! They do other, simpler jaunts
in England, e.g. Whitby of course.
They are London-based. They have a website; I should
think you'ld find it easily by googling 'Dracula
Society'; if you have problems, let me know and I'll
look it up in o=ne of their newsletters.
Jacqueline
--- Caroline Tully <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Jaqueline said..
> >>I was in a coach with a Dracula Society tour, so
> couldn't stop to explore
> local traditions.<<
>
> Please tell us (or at least me) a bit more about
> being in this coach... Why
> were you there? Do you like Dracula, or were you
> studying people who do? I
> know someone who went on a Dracula tour in
> Transylvania or somewhere...
>
> ~Caroline.
>
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