Counterfeit Castles: The Age of Mechanical Reproduction in Bram Stoker's "Dracula" and Jules Verne's "Le Château des Carpathes"

In 1891, the French daily Le Matin reported that visitors to the World's Columbian Exposition, due to be held two years later in Chicago, would be treated to performances by the world-famous opera star Adelina Patti. The celebrated prima donna would be especially conspicuous, however, by her absence. Attendees would instead witness a mechanical figure representing Madame Patti in life-size form en grandeur naturelle. An electrical device will automatically reproduce the diva's particular gestures, smile and muscular facial movements. Hidden inside the figure, there will be a phonograph equipped with previously recorded clips of the singer's voice. This present study argues that Verne, propelled by the contemporary reaction to this publicized appropriation of the utterances of another, exploits the metaphor of the disembodied voice in Le Chateau to express a specifically fin-de-siecle anxiety concerning authorship and human agency, not only in relation to then-nascent reproductive technologies, but also with regard to the newly destabilized relationship between signs and their referents.