by Bram Stoker
ak Wagons for hauling large objects.
al A reference to Shakespeare’s Macbeth, whose three witches are referred to as “weird sisters.”
am Mythical reptile whose breath and gaze were said to strike the viewer dead.
an Popular concert.
ao A match, a “catch” (French).
ap In Shakespeare’s Othello, Desdemona is the tide character’s beloved wife.
aq That is, she will be a virgin; see the Bible, Matthew 25:1, the parable of the ten virgins.
ar Thomas Edison had built the first phonograph twenty years earlier, in 1877.
as The first Latin sentence, from the Roman poet Juvenal’s satire 16, means “Everything in Rome was up for sale.” The second is the abbreviation of verbum satis sapienti , “A word to the wise is sufficient”
at At the age of (Latin).
au That is, in Korea.
av Town in Bavaria, Germany, famous for its medieval architecture.
aw 1808 poem by Sir Walter Scott.
ax 1815.
ay The old man’s talk is liberally sprinkled with words from a Yorkshire dialect: In this paragraph, fash masel means “trouble myself’; feet-folks are people who travel on foot, in this case tourists; and creed aught means “believe anything.” newspapers, which is full of fool-talk.’ I thought he would be a good person to learn interesting things from, so I asked him if he would mind telling me something about the whale-fishing in the old days. He was just settling himself to begin when the clock struck six, whereupon he laboured to get up, and said:—
az In this paragraph, gang ageeanwards means “go toward”; crammle aboon the grees means “go upstairs”; belly-timber is “food”; and sairly means “sorely” or “badly.”
ba A self-important authority.
bb Lightly-woven fabric.
bc The sentence “translates” as: “These curses and spirits and ghosts and bogie-men and the like are only fit to make children and dizzy women cry.” The old man goes on to talk about beuk-bodies, which are book-people or pedants. His phrase to skeer an’scunner hafflin’s means “to scare and shame half-wits.”
bd This part of the sentence “translates” as: “it’ll be a queer mess at the Day of Judgment when they come tumbling up here in their shrouds, all jumbled together and trying to drag their tombstones with them.” ‡Withered.
be In this paragraph, yabblins means “perhaps”; a balm-bowl is a chamber-pot and a kirk-garth a churchyard; snod an’ snog means “snug and cozy”; and the bier-bank is the churchyard path.
bf Doubts.
bg Pushing.
bh In this paragraph, gawm means “know”; acrewk’d is “crooked”; lamiter means “cripple”; the clegs and the dowps are “the flies and the crows”; and keckle means “laugh.”
bi To defer to.
bj Physiologist Sir John Burdon-Sanderson (1828-1905) measured the electrical impulses of the heart. David Ferrier (1843-1928) was a brain surgeon.
bk A humming sound.
bl Crazy or stupid.
bm One foot in the grave.
bn Chafing.
bo Jaws.
bp Mourn and grieve.
bq Cloud formations that presage a storm.
br The Royal Academy of Arts, and the Royal Institute.
bs Quotation from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1798), by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
bt Miraculous to say (Latin).
bu Sails and mast.
bv Legal statutes regarding land or property held in perpetuity by an institution; mortmain translates, literally, as “dead hand” (French).
bw Title character in Felicia Hemans’s 1827 poem “Casabianca,” better known as “The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck.”
bx Highland plains.
by Port on the Black Sea, now in Bulgaria.
bz With a grain of salt (Latin).
ca Tip or bribe.
cb The left, or port, side of the ship.
cc Straits of Gibraltar, separating the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean.
cd Channel between southeastern England and northern France; the narrowest point of the English Channel.
ce Headland with a lighthouse, near Margate on the coast of Kent.
cf The sandman; the urge to sleep.
cg Narrow alleys.
ch Louis Spohr (1784-1859), German composer.
ci Sir Alexander Campbell Mackenzie (1847-1935), Scottish composer.
cj Railway station connecting London with the north.
ck Chloral hydrate, commonly used as a sedative during Victorian times.
cl The god of dreams; son of Hypnos, the god of sleep.
cm In the Bible’s New Testament, a miracle in which Jesus turned a few loaves and fishes into food for several thousand people.
cn A well-known eighteenth-century criminal who made two spectacular escapes from Newgate prison.
co City on the Yorkshire coast, some 150 miles north of London.
cp Tempered in cold running water—that is, strong. In Shakespeare’s Othello, Othello says, “I have another weapon in this chamber; / It is a sword of Spain, the ice brook’s temper.”
cq Harrod’s, the London department store, a popular meeting-place then as now.
cr Tip the scale.
cs Remove the fibrin, or clotting matter, from the blood.
ct Bruising or crushing.
cu “God in heaven!”
cv Supposed to cause lethargy and oblivion.
cw In Greek mythology, river in Hades that causes forgetfulness.
cx One-horse carriage.
cy In Shakespeare’s Hamlet (act 5, scene 1), garlands and flowers buried with the dead Ophelia.
cz Hotel near Piccadilly Circus in London.
da A half guinea; slightly more than half a pound.
db Singing club.
dc Doing my accounts.
dd Popular nineteenth-century sedative composed of opium and alcohol.
de In private; literally, in chambers (Latin).
df The grassy plains of South America.
dg Become ill, die.
dh Doctor of Medicine, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, Licentiate of the King’s and Queen’s College of Physicians, Ireland.
di Thirst.
dj Rum with water.
dk Garland for the head.
dl From “The Death-bed,” by Thomas Hood (1799-1846).
dm Candlelit room where a corpse lies in state for a few days after death (French).
dn From “The Giaour” (1813), by George Gordon, Lord Byron.
do Arthur, who has now inherited his father’s title.
dp Rotten Row in Hyde Park, a lane for horseback riding.
dq A horse-drawn cab.
dr Smaller park opposite Hyde Park.
ds Woman married to more than one husband at one time.
dt Baby talk for “beautiful.”
du Widely considered the greatest actress of the Victorian era; the longtime acting partner of Henry Irving and a friend and colleague of Stoker.
dv In both hands (French).
dw Railway station connecting London with the West of England.
dx Town in Cornwall, about 100 miles southwest of London.
dy Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893), French neurologist renowned for his experiments with hypnotism.
dz According to the Bible (Genesis 5:27), he lived 969 years.
ea Thomas Parr was popularly believed to have lived from 1483 to 1635; in fact, there were probably three generations of Thomas Parrs.
eb Reference to Mark Twain, who wrote, in The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894): “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”
ec Misquoted from Byron’s Don Juan (1819-1824): “To prove himself the thing he most abhorr’d.”
ed Inn on Hampstead Heath.
ee Spermaceti, a waxy substance derived from oils from the sperm whale; used to make fine candles.
ef Screwdriver.
eg
Projecting rim or edge.
eh Body-snatchers stole corpses from churchyards and sold them to doctors, who used them for medical research.
ei Well-known pub.
ej To buy something without inspecting it first.
ek The Catholic communion wafer.
el Permission from the Vatican.
em Undead (Romanian).
en Railway station in eastern London.
eo The first London underground had opened in 1890.
ep Small London railway terminal.
eq Bottle specially made to fit into a suitcase.
er Early version of carbon paper, with which a typist can make copies of a typescript.
es After the fact (Latin).
et Driving a cart for hire; the origin of the word “teamster.”
eu Logic terms meaning “no reason” and “ignorance of the charge” (Latin).
ev Questionable remedy; several popular tonics of the time promised to strengthen or purify the blood.
ew Thracian peninsula west of the Dardanelles.
ex Literal translation of “Transylvania.”
ey According to Romanian folklore, a school where the devil teaches the secrets of nature.
ez A very deep lake in Transylvania.
fa Gentlemen’s club in London.
fb Texas became part of the United States in 1845.
fc Death, often portrayed with a scythe as the Grim Reaper.
fd “Into thy hands, O Lord!” (Latin).
fe Nails used in the soles of shoes or boots.
ff See the Bible, Exodus 13:21: “And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light” (King James Version).
fg District in north London.
fh District in southeast London.
fi Mile End New Town and Bermondsey are districts in east London.
fj The old medieval center of London, for centuries England’s financial center.
fk Neighborhood of shipping and industry in east London.
fl First installment of a payment.
fm Politically conservative gentleman’s club in London.
fn Lane behind a row of houses, lined with stables and carriage houses.
fo just west of Piccadilly Circus.
fp Chain of tea shops.
fq The self-important steward in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.
fr Reference to the Bible, Genesis 5:22-23: “And Enoch walked with God ...” (KJV).
fs Reference to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, act 3, scene 4.
ft Reference to Shakespeare’s King Lear, act 3, scene 4: “But mice and rats, and such small deer / Have been Tom’s food for seven long year.”
fu A play on the word “devil.”
fv Operation in which a part of the skull is removed to relieve pressure.
fw Like the leper in the Bible, Leviticus 13:45: “His clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean” (KJV).
fx In fox-hunting, to block the fox’s burrows and prevent him from escaping.
fy According to the rules (French).
fz Make haste slowly (Latin).
ga Note well (Latin).
gb A knife used by the Gurkhas, an ethnic group from Nepal who aided British military efforts in India.
gc Upright windlass for hoisting heavy weights.
gd Notched wheel.
ge Perhaps Van Helsing means double entendre, “double meaning” (French).
gf A quote from the Roman historian Tacitus (a.d. c.55-117): Everything unknown seems wonderful (Latin).
gg The boat is named for Catherine II (the Great) of Russia, czarina (empress) from 1762 to 1796.
gh “Bloody.”
gi “Blooming.”
gj Poisons produced by decaying plant and animal matter.
gk American rifles.
gl A town in western Siberia.
gm The undivided property of a recently deceased person.
gn Large railway station in central London.
go Luxury train from Paris to Istanbul.
gp Lloyd’s of London, the great insurance company.
gq Her Britannic Majesty.
gr Modern Galati, a city on the Danube in eastern Romania.
gs From the particular to the universal (Latin).
gt Max Nordau’s Degeneration (published in German in 1892) suggested that the human race was deteriorating.
gu Cesare Lombroso claimed, in Criminal Man (1876), that the criminal personality could be identified through physical characteristics.
gv Rope or cable.
gw Capital of Romania.
gx Behind.
gy See.
gz When.
ha The Old Man; the devil.
hb The Adelphi specialized in broad melodrama; hence, an exaggerated stage Jew.
hc Coins.
hd Tax on imported goods.
he Rivers flowing from the Carpathians to the Danube.
hf Lowlying riverine district in eastern England.
hg Lively, animated (French). Van Helsing uses the masculine form of the word; he should have said vive.