12 March 1820

12 March 1820 is the date of Andrew Wright’s journal entry recording his arrival in Buda with Dr. Emil Baum. The day marks a new stage in Andrew’s search for his sister Glynis: after a difficult journey, he reaches Sir Stephen Sheridan’s mansion and begins navigating the household and city where his inquiries into Count Dracula will continue.

The Dated Arrival

Andrew’s journal places the arrival in Buda, Hungary, on 12 March 1820. Their weather-beaten carriage pulls into the courtyard of Sir Stephen’s mansion beneath a blazing sun. Andrew jumps down before the driver has dismounted, stretching after the journey and taking in the foliage, marble columns, and imposing house. The date therefore anchors the start of his Buda visit in a specific place and a moment of physical arrival, rather than merely recording a point in the wider chronology.

The journey had tested both travelers. Storms followed them after they left Munich, and they were stranded in Austria for nearly a week while severe weather halted transportation. Andrew had wondered whether he would survive the trip to see Glynis. Dr. Emil Baum, his companion and the Wright family physician, arrives stiff and exhausted; Andrew helps him down from the carriage and acknowledges his debt to him for making the journey.

The Search for Glynis

Andrew explains that Baum has accompanied him to examine Glynis. The purpose of the visit gives the date its personal stakes: Andrew has come not simply to reach Buda, but to find his sister after a long and uncertain journey. Sir Stephen’s wife, Maria Ramsay, greets the visitors in the courtyard. Mistaking Andrew at first for his father, she remarks on the family resemblance, then identifies herself and welcomes him and Baum.

The entry records their arrival and introduction to Maria; it does not yet describe Andrew reuniting with Glynis. That distinction leaves the date poised between the completion of the journey and the encounter he has come to seek.

Buda in the Wider Timeline

The date falls within a longer sequence of Dracula’s plans and Stephen’s service to him. In an entry dated 4 September 1819, Stephen writes that Count Dracula’s new plans are underway and describes traveling with him from Buda back to the castle. Months later, Andrew’s arrival places him in the same city, where he is intent on learning more about Dracula and Stephen’s dealings.

Buda is also presented as a city in transition. During a later visit to Stephen’s place of business, Stephen says its modern building was erected five years earlier and predicts that Buda may eventually join with Pesth to form a great cosmopolitan city. This outlook gives Andrew’s March arrival a setting shaped by commercial ambition and anticipated urban change, even as his immediate purpose remains intensely private: finding Glynis.