The Carpathian Castle

The Carpathian Castle
Author Jules Verne
Original title Le Château des Carpathes
Translator kavya
Illustrator Léon Benett
Country France
Language French
Series The Extraordinary Voyages #37
Genre Science fiction,
horror novel
Publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel
Publication date
 1892
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 novel by Jules Verne first published in 1893. It is possible that Bram Stoker took inspiration from this for his 1897 novel Dracula. Possibly Verne had been inspired by seeing the ruined Devín Castle near Bratislava during his boat travel on the Danube river.

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 (then part of 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 Télek, 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.

Further reading

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French edition of Wikisource, the free library


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