Description from Amaranthine Books website

The Scholomance Edition of Dracula, aptly named after the supposed place of Dracula’s education, is the ultimate collector’s item. The idea behind it was to create something truly unique, without taking anything away from its counterpart, Dracula – Transylvania Edition. The number of copies – 50 numbered editions – was inspired by the number of boxes of Transylvanian soil that Dracula has shipped to London, because he can only rest on the soil of his homeland.

That is why the book comes in a sleek wooden box, beautifully carved and numbered, hiding one of the design Easter Eggs and a big surprise – a piece of real Transylvanian soil behind the small plexiglass window. This is because, as the story goes, Dracula can only rest on the soil of his homeland, so it was made sure that even Amaranthine's Dracula can get the same “rest”. This soil was shipped to Amaranthine Books by represenattives of Bran Castle in Transylvania and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity, signed by both Amaranthine Books and Bran Castle representatives.

Once you open the box, you are met with the covers of the book, draped in red, richly textured fabric that is a joy to touch which aims to underline Dracula’s opulence, his seemingly unlimited funds. It is a common misconception that Dracula was killed by the sunlight, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth – he is merely sensitive to it, it makes him weaker. Therefore, we decided to make our book sensitive to light as well, so the cover features Dracula’s portrait that absorbs the light and then glows in the dark. The only difference from the Transylvania Edition is that his eye is red – this is another nod to the story, because his eyes turn from blue to red when he is angered.

When you open the book you’ll be greeted by beautiful black, bat-themed endpapers. But the real treat is on the title page, you’ll notice the title is a bit different – this is because it is written in real blood; the blood of the creatives that worked on this book. The blood was carefully extracted and used for all 50 copies, then it was sealed with a fixative spray so the reader wouldn’t be in direct contact with it. Inside the book you’ll also find sixteen gorgeous illustrations by Vedran Klemens that cover the key plot points in the book, also featuring glow-in-the-dark effect. The page edges were painted in black, but in a way that it would interact with the capillarity of the paper, making the paint flutter on the edge of each page differently, like some kind of darkness is seething into the book. Occasionally, a few tiny droplets were allowed to escape on the margins, just to emphasise the effect. Once you reach the end, you should notice another design Easter Egg and you can read the Afterword which explains the thought process and the creative concept behind this edition. Also, with each book you’ll receive a bookmark in the shape of a wooden stake, a precautionary method that ensures that you and Dracula remain on the same page, so to speak.

The whole run has only 50 numbered copies, of which two are going to the artists that worked on this project and one is going into the archive of Amaranthine Books, making this an extremely rare edition.

You can see more pictures and production details of the book and the illustrations in the gallery on the Amaranthine Books website.

Transylvania edition