As a Bram Stoker biographer, I applaud the initiative of the University of Derby in undertaking the Dracula Returns to Derby project to raise awareness that the roots of the modern mass-media vampire phenomenon lie in that city (Fangs for the memories: how Dracula was made in Derby, 3 June).
Bram Stoker may have written the novel in 1897, but it was the adaptation by the Irish actor, manager and playwright Hamilton Deane, first performed at the Grand theatre in Derby on 15 May 1924, that began a process that would transform the original gothic novel through the medium of stage and, later, film and television. Deane would have to wait three years for his adaptation to be performed in London, the launchpad for its eventual global success.
Paul Murray
From the Shadow of Dracula: A Life of Bram Stoker (2004)
• Do you have a photograph you’d like to share with Guardian readers? If so, please click here to upload it. A selection will be published in our Readers’ best photographs galleries and in the print edition on Saturdays.
