The Carpathian Castle

The Carpathian Castle

Author	Jules Verne
Original title	Le Château des Carpathes
Illustrator	Léon Benett
Language	French
Series	The Extraordinary Voyages #37
Genre	Science fiction, horror novel
Publisher	Pierre-Jules Hetzel
Publication date	1892
Publication place	France
Published in English	1893
Media type	Print (Hardback)
Preceded by	Mistress Branican
Followed by	Claudius Bombarnac

The Carpathian Castle (French: Le Château des Carpathes) is a Gothic novel by Jules Verne first published in 1892. It is possible that Bram Stoker took inspiration from this for his 1897 novel Dracula. Due to castle aspect and local toponymy, it is assumed that Colț Castle in Hunedoara county inspired Jules Verne. Probable inspiration for Verne was his extended stay in Bratislava and the Devín castle in present day Slovakia, where he also wrote his novel The Danube Pilot.

Title

The original French title was Le Château des Carpathes, and in English there are some alternate titles, such as The Castle of the Carpathians, The Castle in Transylvania, and Rodolphe de Gortz; or the Castle of the Carpathians.

Synopsis

In the village of Werst in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania (in the then Austria-Hungary), some mysterious things are occurring and the villagers believe that Chort (the devil) occupies the castle. A visitor to the region, Count Franz de Telek, is intrigued by the stories and decides to go to the castle and investigate. He finds that the owner of the castle is Baron Rodolphe de Gortz, with whom he is acquainted; years earlier, they were rivals for the affections of the celebrated Italian prima donna La Stilla. The Count thought that La Stilla was dead, but he sees her image and hears her voice coming from the castle. It is later revealed that it was only a projected still image accompanying a high-quality phonograph recording.

In the media

• The 1981 Czechoslovak comedy feature film The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians is based on this novel.

Further reading

• Shah, Raj (2014). "Counterfeit Castles: The Age of Mechanical Reproduction in Bram Stoker's Dracula and Jules Verne's Le Château des Carpathes". Texas Studies in Literature and Language. 56 (4): 428–71. doi:10.7560/tsll56404. S2CID 162708881.
• Isabelle Crépy. Un Prêtre en 1839 (1847) et Le Château des Carpathes (1892), influencés par le roman gothique anglais. Bulletin de la Société Jules Verne 118. Pages 41-43. 2e. trimestre 1996.

External links

• Le Château des Carpathes at Project Gutenberg (in French)
• The Castle of the Carpathians (in English)
• The Castle of the Carpathians public domain audiobook at LibriVox