DRACULA: THE EVIDENCE Hardcover Edition

Merry Christmas from the Living Dead
over 2 years ago – Mon, Dec 25, 2023 at 01:44:49 PM

Dear friends,

I'm writing to you as the sun sets on a cold Christmas Day, feeling reflective. And here at this darkest time of the lamp-lit year, I find myself very un-vampirically grateful, even sentimental, about the community of like-minded gentlefolk that has sprung up around and stood by this challenging and troubled project, despite its challenges. A group united by love for a strange, dark text published thirteen decades ago, fascinated by its possibilities, its meanings, the puzzles and prophecies it contains.

Since the beginning, Beehive Books has been a crowdfunded publisher specializing in odd and difficult projects. Our dream was that readers would vote with their funds to try to bring unlikely, quixotic publications into the world. Somehow, that vision came true. We've put out dozens of books now, none of which would have been possible without the community that funded them... i.e. You.

We also swore from the beginning that we would never create one of Those Kickstarters -- the ones that drag on year after year, teasing their backers with endless promises and delays. And yet, despite our best efforts, here we are, years past our fulfillment, with a ways to go still.

So before I get into the latest sneak peek, I just wanted to indulge myself in sending the sincerest thanks to you all for sticking with us this long. I know we've tested your patience, and are continuing to do so. I wanted to take a moment to affirm that the faith you've shown us is always at the top of our minds, and we're always working to pay it off. We bit off more than we can chew here, but we're gnashing madly with Vlad-like canines, and pushing our way through this thing. 2024 is going to be our year. (I might have said that about 2023, too. I'm honestly afraid to check.)

Anyway -- with our hearts now embarrassingly sleeve-worn, onto the update. 

We're pushing forward towards our estimated 2024 fulfillment date. Lots of new pieces coming in, proofs being approved and adjusted, materials indented for production. And we're ready for one more sneak peek.

[SPOILERS LAY BEYOND THIS POINT]

Last month we highlighted Mina's correspondence to Lucy, so we thought it might be nice to show the other side of that.

To my reading, Lucy is one of the most fascinating and vivid characters in DRACULA, and her story is given short shrift it many of the adaptations of the novel. Her voice as a writer is so lively, charming and idiosyncratic, and her ongoing illness and diminishment as she falls under the sway of the dread Count is painful and moving. 

The first great and sudden shift in DRACULA happens in Chapter 5, when we suddenly depart the castle and find ourselves back in England, sifting through the chatty and charming correspondence of two at-first-unidentified women. This is perhaps the first signal from Stoker that this is something far larger and stranger than the claustrophobic gothic horror we've been led to expect. 

I've mentioned before that we have over 15 calligraphers working on this project, a full cast worthy of a Broadway play. Our Lucy is played by the wonderful Celeste Lucas, who brought her joyous, infectious energy, and her razor sharp sense of humor, to the page. Here's a sample from her correspondence with Mina. 

Of course, Lucy's charm and joie de vivre is tested and slowly worn away, and this was the challenge of Celeste's performance. We're asking a lot of our calligraphers -- they are our storytellers, in many ways. It's really acting on the page, and Celeste brought her A game. Contrast the above with Lucy's private diaries, as her health declines for reasons she doesn't yet understand. There's something heartbreaking in how she keeps up the florid flourish of her script even as her strength fades.

And then onto Lucy's final memorandum, which she writes urgently on her deathbed, and then shreds in a hypnotic fugue state. It'll be torn in our box set, left up to our readers to re-assemble the torn pieces of her final words, if they want to experience them. Here's a hint.

As always, I'm worried I'm spoiling some of the fun with these sneak peeks, but we're also so pleased to get to share some of the beautiful things we're cooking. 

We have some really exciting updates coming in the early part of 2024, especially as relates to the audio records. I can't say too much quite yet, but you may be able to hold those in your hands sooner than you think.

We also sometimes like to share other Dracula-derived projects by friends and strangers. The great cartoonist Rich Tomasso has been working on a wonderfully strange one -- a magazine of production art for an imaginary Disney production of Dracula from the 1940s. 

It's only available through Rich's Patreon subscriptions, so it's a little tricky to get a hold of a copy, but I thought it's something you all might enjoy! We're always suckers for artwork that plays with the borders of reality and fiction, and Rich is doing that brilliantly here.

Thank you, friends, for your kindness, patience, passion, and commitment to this bizarre project that has filled us up and threatened to break us. We're so excited to share what's to coming.

Wishing you light in the darkness of the solstice. Hope you're all cozy and happy with your loved ones in these long nights at the end of the year. Love to you all.

Josh, on behalf of all Bees everywhere

SNEAK PEEK: Mina's Letters
over 2 years ago – Fri, Oct 27, 2023 at 11:09:17 AM

Dear ones,

We push on! Here in the most infernal month of the most haunted season, we continue moving towards completion of this endless project, creeping forward with the slowness and inexorability of the fingernails curling off one of our dearly departed.

We want, as usual, to thank you all for the extraordinary faith that you've shown us. We still have a long way to go, but we are closer every day. We refuse to compromise a project for which so many readers have shown so much passion and desire.

I thought, as Halloween approaches, we'd drop a line with some updates about some of the pieces we've been buttoning up and sending off to print.

I know that many readers have told us that they'd prefer not to look at any of our previews, so as to keep themselves un-spoiled when they finally get to discover the box set or hardcover book in its glorious print form. So we're going to stop here for a commercial break. If you want to remain unspoiled, don't read past the promo post below. If you do, keep scrolling. We have some good stuff to share with you.

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I know some folks are sensitive about us sharing our other projects while this one is so extensively, brutally delayed. We don't expect anyone we've kept waiting for this long to spend more money with us. But as lovers of the strange and the spectral, we did want to make sure you were aware of our new project, which is scheduled to ship well before the holidays. (Producing a beautiful blanket is far easier than this madness we're engaged in with DRACULA.)

This lovely and troubling textile y the great Charles Burns, author of BLACK HOLE and LAST LOOK, joins ILLUMINATED TAPESTRIES, our ongoing series of strange and spectacular woven textiles by various artists, many of which, in addition to being gorgeous, are bizarre, somewhat frightening, and possibly haunted.

Join us if you'd like to. Some bubbling black magic is happening here.

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OK -- for those of you still with us -- let's continue.

I don't believe we've yet previewed any of the many, many letters included in this set. Our assemblage includes business correspondence from real estate agents and shipping services, finely embossed welcome notes from the dread count himself, madly scrawled entreaties from Van Helsing, among many dozens of pieces of correspondence. But my personal favorite -- the letters closest to my heart -- are the notes between Lucy and Mina.

We did quite a lot of research into the mores and modes of written correspondence in Victorian England. Beyond mere verisimilitude, we want these documents to tell a story about our characters. And in Victorian correspondence, one was communicating in many ways that go beyond the text of a letter. The choice of stationary stock, the format and folds of the paper, monograms, perfumes, seals, stamps -- these all said communicated something about the personal style and presentation of the letter's author, and their relationship to the receiver.

Lucy and Mina write back and forth using Regency-style self-folded booklets for her correspondence. Here's an online guide to how to create this kind of Regency-style correspondence, if any of you are interested in a throwback style of very non-instant messaging.

Here's Mina's first letter. It's the very first thing we read in the book that is not an excerpt from Jonathan's journal. Credit to the wonderful Beth Lee, part of our fantastic and expansive cast of calligraphers. She really brings across Mina's warmth, practicality, curiosity, and brisk charm.

Mina's personality comes across in these letters -- studious, passionate, engaged, alert. Bold yet careful, effortlessly composed, never performative.

We will share a sneak peek at Lucy's reply on our next post, but here's one of her envelopes to Mina.

When we share more of Lucy in a forthcoming update, you'll see how her personality contrasts with Mina's. More playful, self-aware, performative, ornamented -- and yet with a sense of irony underlying everything. One of the least-commented on aspects of Lucy is her wonderful sense of humor. Lucy and Mina's friendship, and the contrast in their personalities, is one of the small beautifully human touches in Stoker's world, so we really tried to bring it to life in their correspondence. Unto the point of using Victorian mourning stationary -- paper and envelopes with a black border -- to communicate their grief, after everything goes so horribly wrong.

As always, trying to create a sense of historical verisimilitude for this project required some fairly deranged deep dives into some odd corners of British history. Paul and I can now discourse extensively about the history of Victorian and Edwardian postal codes in London (our tale takes place after postal codes were added to London addresses, but before numbers were included in those postal codes), postage and envelope design and manufacturing,  and the intricacies of postal documentation. We fell down quite a rabbit hole with the various cancellation stamps that were used to mark a letter as having been sent. The style of cancellation stamps mean various things, and change frequently through the years. They actually have quite a colorful culture around them! Here's a screenshot from our internal company messaging system to get a small window into our descent into madness.

Our favorite find, which is fairly accurate to the period in which our story takes place, was known as the Penny Post Jubilee, which is now also going to be the name of my new retro British Invasion folk rock band. The Penny Post Jubilee was a celebration of the fifty years of the British postal system, in which they released dozens of special stamps and cancellations. 

Additionally, in the London of the era, some large special events had custom cancellation stamps and envelopes made -- people would draft letters and bring them to an event, then post their letters from the event to get the special postage on their envelopes. For instance, Earl's Court held a Gardening & Forestry Exhibition at Earl's Court ran from June 17 - Oct 14, which fits the time frame of our tale -- we have theorized that Mina went to the exhibition, and posted a special letter to Lucy in Whitby from there.

Here are a few great finds from our Penny Post Jubilee research!

That's all for now, friends. We're still pushing forward, and still aiming to finish this before the end of next year. Thank you for your extraordinary patience, which I know we're testing. I hope you can see that we're getting there.

And remember, you can use code FRUSTRATION at beehivebooks.com for 20% off all of our books in print. That code will be good as long as this project is delayed. Might come in handy during the holidays!

Yours,

The Bees

SNEAK PEEK: Jonathan Harker's Journal
over 2 years ago – Mon, Sep 04, 2023 at 11:35:31 AM

Hello friends,

We push on, in spite of everything. Lots of progress on our end, though still miles to go before we sleep.

Our vinyl records (three discs, two editions) are now finished, and are being prepared for mastering and pressing. We're so excited to get the first test pressings and metal masters. We'll be sure to share some clips of it on the turntable soon!

Sometimes, the long delays of this project create their own delays. For instance, the wrap material we were planning to use for the suitcases has now been discontinued, so we're back on the hunt for a replacement. (The challenge is finding something that looks both era-accurate, and can hold up to the hand-aging processes we apply to many of the items.) We have some good options -- it's not a huge problem, just another example of how issues on a project of this scale can often compound themselves.

But mostly, things are moving forward, and proceeding well towards what we hope will be a 2024 printing and fulfillment. We've finalized a number of items in the past month or two, including the three discs of Dr. Seward's audio records, the key to Carfax Abbey, and a lot of telegrams and letters. We're putting the final touches on Jonathan Harker's journal, which we believe is one of the stand-out items in this massive box set. And I thought I'd share a sneak peek of that with you all now.

OUR USUAL DISCLAIMER: We believe our box set is best experienced as a fresh exploration, without looking at a lot of previews and sneak peeks. But of course, we understand that with these extreme delays, a lot of folks are getting antsy, so we hope some of these previews will help, for those not afraid to look behind the curtain where spoilers lay.

 In this section, we see Jonathan begin in earnest his research into the ambit of Dracula and his many boxes of Transylvanian soil around London and beyond. He is writing from a train, en route from Exeter to London to begin his work. He starts writing with a pen, but as the jostling of the train results in drips and smears, he quickly switches to pencil. We can see the ink drips on both sides of the sheet, where they bled through the page. This is the kind of attention to detail we strive for -- a fully dramatized experience on the stage, that brings you into the material present of the creation of these documents. 

We're so proud of this document, which is over 300 pages, including countless pages of era-accurate Pitman shorthand and some of the most gorgeous and natural 19th century calligraphy we've seen, as well as a number of sketches, drawings and maps by drafted Jonathan Harker, as played by our brilliant collaborator Miriam Sachs, a German theatre artist and calligrapher who specializes in channeling characters through handwriting.

For those of you interested, you can see a few samples of Miriam's beautiful work in the pages linked above. These are still being finalized, but they're pretty close.

More updates soon! Thank you for your extended patience, friends. We really are getting there.

The Bees

Sneak Peek at Mina's Transcriptions
over 2 years ago – Tue, Jul 11, 2023 at 04:53:56 PM

Hello friends,

We continue to push forward, however slowly. We're so grateful to you all for sticking with us.

We're getting there! A number of issues caused by the supply chain breakdown and rising material costs have been easing lately, and we remain optimistic that we can wrap all of this up next year.

In the meantime, we continue to hone what we're doing. We'll have a lot more sneak peeks to share in the coming weeks and months. But I think that this is a very cool one.

One of the core documents included in our box set is Mina's typescript. This is a sort of meta-document -- it's created by Mina over the course of the story as she types and retypes the various other documents that have been assembled by our friends in the anti-Dracula faction. Mina's typescript is what we're reading when we read Dracula -- her assemblage of documents, narratives and evidence.

In chapter 14, Mina writes in her diary: "That fearful Count was coming to London... There may be a solemn duty; and if it come we must not shrink from it... I shall be prepared. I shall get my typewriter this very hour and begin transcribing. Then we shall be ready for other eyes if required." And in this moment, we hit a minor milestone in the history of literary fiction, as one of the great gothic horror novels begins to write itself. What we are reading when we read Dracula is a result of an editorial process undertaken by the characters from the novel. Though there are many earlier examples of epistolary novels, I'm not aware of one that approaches its assemblage quite so self-consciously, and includes countless descriptions of transcribing, assembling, distributing, and revising. (Curious if anyone has any earlier historical examples!) In this moment Dracula shifts gears, and becomes something far more ambitious and strange than the searing, magnetic horror piece that it already was.

Which is all a long way of saying: this is an important document in our box set. It's the only document that includes Stoker's entire text. So we wanted to do it right.

We've produced this piece as a typescript, bound in rusting metal brackets, on thin smooth typewriter stock. It's a six hundred page document, as Mina would realistically not be using both sides of the sheet to type. And, most vitally, the bracket-binding allows the typescript to be disassembled and reassembled, which allows users of our box set to enact the same editorial process that Mina (and Stoker) were constantly undertaking: revising and rethinking how to tell the story of Dracula.

For those who want to remain unspoiled for the final product next year, do not click the below link. But for those brave souls and nervous backers who want to see that we're continuing to produce, take a look at a small sneak peek at Mina's diary below. Click through for a Dropbox link to the preview. It's not final, and we may still make some revisions before we go to print.

More soon, friends. We really are deeply sorry for the endless delays, but this will be worth the wait. Hope you're all having a more relaxing summer than the Harkers did.

We also have a new campaign for a gorgeous line of woven blankets in its final day right now, for those of you who may be interested. It ends at noon tomorrow, EST.

And as long as we're keeping you waiting, you'll be able to use the code FRUSTRATION at beehivebooks.com to get 20% off any item currently in print.

Thanks for hanging in there, everyone. More soon.

Bees

A Small Dracuversary Gift
almost 3 years ago – Thu, May 04, 2023 at 01:22:14 AM

Dear ones,

We're entering that most God-forsaken time of year again: May 3rd, marks the anniversary of the date that our good friend Jonathan Harker arrived at the Golden Krone Hotel and, before a fitful, paprika-enhanced sleep, sat down to write in the little journal that would become an unholy log of his psychic and spiritual undoing. Spoiler alert.

As for us, we're hard at work into another glorious season of the beast. Despite these interminable and compounding delays, we push ever forward, closer and closer to finally publishing this somewhat insane project which, much like Jonathan's business trip, has spiraled into something far more difficult and troubling than our foolhardy optimisms had led us to suspect.

But it's going relatively well now, though we've still miles to go before we sleep. There are now nearly 100 different items that go into this bottomless, cursed archive, and we're making the most of the supply-chain delays that thoroughly blew our original careful plans all to hell. We're using this time to improve the project beyond measure. And we'll have lots of results to share with those of you who don't mind seeing the items contained in this thing in drips and drabs. The coming months will see a lot of previews and reveals, for those brave enough to behold them.

But today, we wanted to share a few special things with you that are not included in our box set -- Dracula-related items that excite us, and remind us why we're undertaking this project which has repeatedly threatened to crush and bedevil us.

We've posted before about the remarkable works of Albin Grau, the artist, architect and occultist behind the production designs for F.W. Murnau's 1922 masterpiece NOSFERATU. His work delves as deeply as anyone's into the infernal imaginaries of Stoker's world and vision. And we've long admired this astonishing handbill poster he created for the release of the film.

So when our intrepid fellow-traveler Matthew Cullen shared that he had come across a print-resolution file for this astonishing work of art, we knew that (a) we had to create a print to frame in our offices, and (b) we had to share it with all of you.

Be careful with this high-res file. It is not encrypted, and it doesn't include any viruses or trojan horses, but it may well be haunted. The file is 8.277 x 25.647 inches, and should print beautifully. We recommend a very tall frame.

We have also become huge fans of the wonderfully clever email newsletter known as DRACULA DAILY. Its concept could not be more straightforward: a daily email throughout Dracula season, in which the events of that day in the novel are sent to you in Stoker's original text. It doesn't sound like much, but try it -- it gives you an entirely new sense of the temporal arc of the story, and the urgency of what the characters are up against, and how inexorably they're drawn through the long summer and into their tangled fate with the count. Since Stoker's story is not chronological, the newsletter has to rearrange the text to place the days in order, which gives us an entirely new way to read it and think about it. Much like our box set does, this is a novel reading experience of Stoker's masterpiece, which reveals new layers, rhymes and synchronicities. And I suppose we may be slightly jealous that they found a clever way to do so in which the most laborious bit of work involved is some judicious copy-pasting.

Thank you for your patience, friends. We really are moving along. More updates coming soon, as Jonathan Harker enters his quarantine in Castle Dracula. I know it seems we'll never escape from our own confinement, but we will. We're getting closer every day.

Wishing you all a spring and summer far kinder than the one the Harkers and Westenras experienced, a century-some ago. 

Deathless love,

Josh, on behalf of Team Dracula, and each and every Bee.