Books by and for independent women

Bookish Birthdays: Bram Stoker

Today we’re celebrating the birthday of a man who gave the world an immortal character – in every sense of the world – and in the process ensured that his own name would be remembered and celebrated as long as people are reading: Bram Stoker, born in Ireland on November 8 1847.

Despite his literary fame today, for most of his life Stoker was something of a public figure but in a totally different capacity. After a career in the Irish Civil Service and on the fringes of journalism, he met and became friends with Henry Irving, one of the most famous actors of the age, and moved to London to become Irving’s manager.

As part of Irving’s inner circle, Stoker and his wife Florence became well known in late Victorian literary society though Bram’s own efforts with the pen – melodramatic family sagas like The Primrose Path and The Snake’s Pass – made little impact.

That changed in 1897 when Stoker published his fifth book, the fruit of years of research into European folklore and part of the popular literary movement of Gothic horror fiction.

Dracula was a hit, and most of the rest of Stoker’s subsequent output until his death in 1912 was tilted towards the supernatural though never again with such success. Of his later works, only The Lair of the White Worm is remembered today and generally not with much affection.

Any writer, though, could be forgiven for writing reams of nonsense – or never picking up a pen again – when they’ve produced a book like Dracula.

It’s not original in its subject matter – vampires had been the subject of several novels already, such as John Polidori‘s The Vampyre and Sheridan Le Fanu‘s Carmilla – and its distinctive narrative technique, presenting the story as a collage of ‘found’ material, was also familiar from books like The Woman in White.

Nonetheless, its striking central character – supposedly modelled on Irving himself – and its thrilling pace and plot ensure it’s a gripping and genuinely scary read, while its complex mess of images of blood, purity, sex and otherness make it a treasure trove for academics and psychologists.

Aside from its own considerable merits, Dracula – and the many cinematic adaptations which consolidated and amplified its appeal – brought firmly into popular culture a series of vampiric tropes which have proved incredibly appealing and resilient for more than a century and which show no sign of fading away anytime soon.

So whether you’re on Team Edward, thrill to True Blood‘s Bill and Eric or Poppy Z. Brite‘s Zillah, or just like to hang out in Whitby in velvet and corsets, raise a glass of something appropriately blood-red today to the well-to-do member of the Victorian middle class who made it all possible.

Kate Phillips