The Historian (2005) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

Summary edit see section history

Characters edit see section history

• The narrator, a 16 year old girl: She learns of her father's adventures as a graduate student and embarks on a voyage across Europe with his secret.
• Paul, the narrator's father: A professor of history
• Bartholomew Rossi: Paul's adviser and mentor
• Helen Rossi: Bartholomew Rossi's daughter and later Paul's wife. She is believed to be dead by the narrator.
• Turgut Bora: A Turkish scholar of English literature, and a friend to Paul and Helen while they research in Istanbul.
• Hugh James: An English scholar of central European history
• The librarian: A vampire who works for Dracula and follows Paul and Helen across several cities in Europe. He is first met in the university library by Paul and Helen, and he is the first vampire to attack Helen.
• Geza Josef: A Hungarian scholar and agent. He was romantically interested in Helen before she left to study in the United States.
• Professor Stoichev: A Bulgarian scholar sought out by Paul and Helen under the guise of monastery research.
• Ranov: A Bulgarian bureaucrat/agent that serves as the guide and translator for Paul and Helen during their research in Bulgaria.
• Barley: A young graduate student from Oxford who accompanies the narrator on her journey.
• Georgescu: Add a description of this character.
• Sveti Georgi: It's a ruined manastire from past, on which other one was built. That's where Dracula's body was.
• Selim Aksoy: A friend of Bora's in Instanbul.
• Vlad Dracula: A scholar who is building a secret library.
• Mr. Erozan: The librarian at the Instanbul archive.
• Mrs. Clay: The housekeeper at the narrator's home.
• Stefan
• Baba Yanka: A folk singer in a Bulgarian village.
• Vlad Tepes: Known as Vlad the Impaler. He is the basis for Stoker's Dracula and many other vampire legends.
• Zacharias
• Eva: Helen Rossi's aunt. She is powerfully connected in Hungarian politics.
• Brother Ivan: A Bulgarian monk.
• Master James: A professor at Oxford, and an old acquaintance of Paul's. He is Barley's mentor.
• Sultan Mehmed
• Hedges: A friend of Bartholomew Rossi in England.
• Brother Kiril
• Sándor
• Bram Stoker: Author of Dracula.
• Mr. Binnerts
• Vlad Iii
• Massimo
• Sveti Petko
• Atanas Angelov
• Irina
• Mary

Quotes edit see section history

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• The very worst impulses of humankind can survive generations, centuries, even millennia. And the best of our individual efforts can die with us at the end of a single lifetime.

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• Life’s better, sounder, when we don’t brood unnecessarily on horrors. As you know, human history is full of evil deeds, and maybe we ought to think of them with tears, not fascination.

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• the eagle is a very old Christian symbol, the symbol of Saint John. Matthew—Saint Matthieu—is the angel, and Luke is the ox, and Saint Mark of course is the winged lion. You see that lion all over the Adriatic, because he was Venice’s patron saint. He holds a book in his paws—if the book is open, that statue or relief was carved at a moment when Venice was at peace. Closed, it means Venice was at war.

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• As an adult, I have often known that peculiar legacy time brings to the traveler: the longing to seek out a place a second time, to find deliberately what we stumbled on once before, to recapture the feeling of discovery.

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• For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history’s terrible moments were real. I understand now, decades later, that he could never have told me. Only history itself can convince you of such a truth. And once you’ve seen that truth—really seen it—you can’t look away.

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• “History has taught us that the nature of man is evil, sublimely so. Good is not perfectible, but evil is.

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• Latin root for dragon or devil, the honorary title of Vlad Tepes—the “Impaler”—of Wallachia, a feudal lord in the Carpathians who tormented his subjects and prisoners of war in unbelievably cruel ways.

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• Never before had I known the sudden quiver of understanding that travels from word to brain to heart, the way a new language can move, coil, swim into life under the eyes, the almost savage leap of comprehension, the instantaneous, joyful release of meaning, the way the words shed their printed bodies in a flash of heat and light.

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• It is a fact that we historians are interested in what is partly a reflection of ourselves, perhaps a part of ourselves we would rather not examine except through the medium of scholarship; it is also true that as we steep ourselves in our interests, they become more and more a part of us.

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• Dracula means son of Dracul—son of the dragon, more or less. His father had been inducted into the Order of the Dragon by Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund—it was an organization for the defense of the Empire against the Ottoman Turks. Actually, there is evidence that Dracula’s father gave Dracula over to the Turks when he was a boy as hostage in a political bargain, and that Dracula acquired some of his taste for cruelty from observing Ottoman torture methods.”

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Trinity College, Oxford: The location where the narrator's father's dissertation advisor, Batholomew Rossi, first receives his edition of the book containing only empty leaves with the exception of the middle two pages, where there is printed the mysterious woodcut of the dragon clutching the banner bearing the single word DRAKULYA.Following the discovery of this strange tome, Rossi conducts research into Vlad Tepes, which eventually leads him to penning the letters addressed to, "<His> dear and unfortunate successor," which are found by the narrator at the start of the novel and lead her to delve into the strange events surrounding the life, death, and potential undeath of the legendary Vlad the Impaler.
• Istanbul/Constantinople
• Sofia, Bulgaria
• Wallachia
• Lake Snagov: Home of an abbey and the supposed burial place of the body of Vlad the Impaler.
• Budapest: Capital of Hungary.
• Hungary
• Romania
• Transylvania
• Amsterdam
• Paris
• England
• Eastern Europe
• Greece
• Rila
• Bachkovo
• United States
• London
• Zographou
• Hagia Sophia
• America
• New York
• France
• Perpignan
• Crete
• Balkans
• Byzantium
• Venice
• Haskovo
• Rome: Capital of Italy
• Turkey
• Tsarigrad
• Vienna
• Ragusa
• Cyrillic
• Italy
• Central Europe
• Saint-matthieu
• Boston
• Bucharest
• Târgoviste

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Preceded by Light from Heaven, and followed by The Mermaid Chair.

Preceded by The Thirteenth Tale, and followed by Oliver Twist.

Preceded by Dune, and followed by The Pact.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Elizabeth Kostova (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Quill Award (2005: Debut Author of the Year)
• Hopwood Award (2003: Novel-in-progress)
• International Horror Guild Award (2005: Best Novel)
• Book Sense Award (2006: Best Adult Fiction)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PS3611.O74927 H57 2005
• Dewey: 813.6

Notes for Parents edit see section history

There are a few violent descriptions and a couple passages relating to sex, but it is neither gory nor overtly sexual. What classifies this as adult level is the complexity of reading - it's a long book with multiple narrative plots.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Genre Fiction › Horror › Vampires
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Genre Fiction › Historical

Books That Influenced This Book edit see section history