Who was the translator/editor "A-e"?

Anders Albert Andersson-Edenberg (1834-1913)
Anders Albert Andersson-Edenberg (1834-1913)

Directly under the title Mörkrets makter, both the Dagen and the Halfvecko-Upplaga variants presented the story as a "novel by Bram Stoker," then explicated that it was a "Swedish adaptation for Dagen by A-e." To understand how Dracula came to Sweden and what role Stoker actually played in the creation of the Swedish variants, identifying "A-e" is essential.

 

While I was exchanging ideas with  Rickard Berghorn in March 2014, I made a "first guess," suggesting that "A-e" might stand for "Aftonbladets editor," that is, Harald Sohlman, the editor-in-chief of both Dagen and Aftonbladets Halfvecko-Upplaga. Berghorn objected that the Swedish word for "editor" is "redaktör." A few weeks later, I followed up with an interview in Vampirisme.com, in which I proposed Anders Albert Andersson-Edenberg (1834-1913), a senior journalist and drama translator.

 

In 1870, Andersson-Edenberg had been one of the co-founders of Publicistklubben, the Swedish Publicists' Association, in which also Sohlman was an active member. Both were involved in the organization of the Fourth International Press Congress in Stockholm in June 1897, and both contributed to a publication celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Association in May 1899, just one month before the serialization of Mörkrets makter started in Dagen. I suspect that Andersson-Edenberg also had known Harald's father, August Sohlman, who had died during a tragic sailing accident in 1874. For a translation of the play Mellan drabbningarne by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832-1910), the Norwegian author who won the 1903 Nobel Prize Winner in Literature, Andersson-Edenberg used the pseudonym “A.E.” For numerous articles in the monthly magazine Svenska Familj-Journalen, he frequently used the pseunonym "A.-E."

 

Last but not least, during the course of 2017, I discovered and published around two dozen similarities between Mörkrets makter and articles Andersson-Edenberg had previously written or edited for Svenska Familj Journalen, where he had been editor-in-chief. In Spring 2018, I summarized my findings on Andersson-Edenberg in the online magazine Vamped.org. You can find all essays I wrote on the matter in the Archive.

 

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