ST ch 7 Dracula

[Robin Landseadel]

Very good. Wasn't sure about the timeline. Certainly, this sort of architype existed prior to Bram Stoker's novel. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_folklore_by_region

This passage seems relevant:

. . . In South Slavic folklore, a vampire was believed to pass through several distinct stages in its development. The first 40 days were considered decisive for the making of a vampire; it started out as an invisible shadow and then gradually gained strength from the lifeblood of the living, forming a (typically invisible) jelly-like, boneless mass, and eventually building up a human-like body nearly identical to the one the person had in life. This development allowed the creature to ultimately leave its grave and begin a new life as a human. The vampire, who was usually male, was also sexually active and could have children, either with his widow or a new wife. These could become vampires themselves, but could also have a special ability to see and kill vampires, allowing them to become vampire hunters . . .

> On 05/16/2026 6:20 PM PDT Mike Weaver <mike.weaver at zen.co.uk> wrote:
> 
>  
> The vampire as a motif for capitalism predates Dracula - Moretti is 
> quoting/paraphrasing Marx from Das Kapital published 30 years before 
> Stoker published Dracula.
> See Walter Crane's poster "The Vampire"published in Justice in 1885.
> https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O708342/the-vampire-cartoon-walter-crane/
> 
> -----------------------------------------------
> 
> On 16/05/2026 22:11, Robin Landseadel via Pynchon-l wrote:
> > I’m hopscotching around Shadow Ticket in presenting these posts, hope you don’t mind.
> > This is a big one, strap in.
> >   
> > Dracula strikes me as central to the concerns of the Shadow Ticket, a wormhole into the
> > dimly-lit past and an arrow to future consolidation of economic power.
> >