AN INTRODUCTION

BY DR. CURT HERR

Dracula is one of the great Victorian novels. It has spawned hundreds of screen and stage adaptations, provided a foundation for the horror genre and is the most famous work in the “vampire fiction” subgenre.

But Bram Stoker's iconic work was not born in a vacuum. In this Introduction, I will try to paint a picture of the world that Stoker inhabited and the literary universe which the book grew out of. Each generation seems to find new interpretations of Dracula, and I argue that its theme of invaded intimacy and the reversal of gender norms is very relevant for our times.

I have also added factual and literary footnotes to the text itself where I think they may provide insight.

BRAM STOKER'S WORLD: SCIENCE AND SPIRIT

Late Victorian England prided itself on its rationality and scientific advances.

Yet this was also the golden age of Spiritualism, in which the Victorian version of ghost hunting became almost an official religion. At the same time as the middle and upper classes were benefitting from advances in medical science and marvels of engineering, there was a parallel imagined world of monsters, ghosts and vampires.

From the attics to the crypts, the forests to the sprawling cities, monsters lurked in the shadows, creating a rich tapestry of terrifying tales. The nineteenth century produced iconic literary monsters such as Frankenstein (1818), Varney the Vampire (1845), Sweeney Todd (1846), Dr. Jekyll (1886), Svengali (1894) and Dracula (1897).

“Penny Dreadfuls” (cheaply produced, serialized works of fiction) explored taboo topics including incest, insanity, cannibalism and murder, captivating audiences across all social classes. Christmas editions of popular magazines featured chilling ghost stories, offering a thrilling escape from the apparently ordered and rational Victorian world. Even Charles Dickens wrote the classic morality tale/ghost story A Christmas Carol as a holiday tale, complete with rattling chains, ghostly visitations and time travel.

This widespread fascination with supernatural tales suggests that many Victorians sought the exhilaration of momentarily losing control. The more rational their culture became, the more they seemed to need an outlet in the otherworldly, subhuman and unnatural. Indeed, the Victorian infatuation with the fantastic and the macabre advanced in step with rapid changes in technology, and the emerging horror literature sought to make sense of it all. Almost magically, in the 1840s, messages were being sent through electric telegraphs, and thirty years later, with the invention of the telephone, the human voice was being sent through wires.

At the same time these astonishing advances were being made, a serial killer prowled the streets of London, hacking up prostitutes, piquing Victorian fascination with the grotesque and the murderous. The development of railroads allowed news and people to travel faster than ever before, yet it wasn't just messages in print that gained speed. Popular séances and celebrity spiritualists aided in communication between the living and the dead. While life-saving vaccinations were being administered, literary vampires consumed the very vaccinated blood that kept society safe and healthy.

The golden age of spiritualism reached a peak in the 1870s, when Bram Stoker was in his twenties. Psychics and mediums seemed to appear on every street corner, and membership in neighbourhood spiritualist societies was highly sought after. Organisations such as the Charing Cross Spirit-Power Circle, the East London Association of Spiritualists and the Christian Spiritual Enquirers rapidly spread throughout England. The Victorians’ obsession with séances, the monstrous and hidden horrors extended for decades, influencing popular culture in stage shows, literature and popular Spiritualist newspapers such as the British Spiritual Telegraph, Spiritual Magazine, and the widely acclaimed Medium and Daybreak.

A number of female spiritualists became celebrities. Figures such as Victoria Woodhull (who also ran for the presidency of the United States in 1872, despite not having the right to vote), medium Cora Scott and the Fox sisters gained widespread recognition on both sides of the Atlantic. Their abilities as powerful mediums reportedly allowed some to produce spectral hands and faces and speak to the departed. Ghostly rappings and tappings haunted the Fox sisters’ home and performance spaces.

As a young man during this era, Stoker was surely aware of the supernatural's popularity — for it was all around him. A keen observer of his culture and fascinated by the high creative arts, he also displayed the grounded logic of a business manager. It is this combination of logic vs. the fantastic, reason vs. the supernatural that would result in his famous creation, Dracula.

STOKER: EARLY LIFE AND CAREER

Abraham Stoker was born on 8 November 1847, in the Dublin suburb of Clontarf. From infancy, he was very ill and was not expected to survive his childhood. This unnamed illness rendered him bedridden until he was finally able to attend school at seven years old. Entertained by his mother's Irish folk tales and horror stories and homeschooled by the local Reverend William Woods, Abraham made an astonishing, albeit unexplained, full recovery. He carried the experiences of childhood illness through his life, and they feature heavily in many of his novels and short stories. Mysterious microorganisms and pathogens, and entrapped and isolated individuals who struggle to walk and are unable to heal or save themselves, haunt his prose. Sickbeds and mysterious illnesses are major plot points in his early short story, The Chain of Destiny, and his most popular novels, The Lady of the Shroud and Dracula.

As he grew into his teens and early adulthood, Stoker became surprisingly healthy and robust. In 1864, when he was 17, he entered Trinity College, Dublin, and became a popular athlete and dedicated student. He graduated with honours in science, but his heart was in letters. Infatuated with the American poet Walt Whitman, Stoker described himself in an 1872 fan letter* to Whitman:

This excerpt reveals Stoker's confidence in his physical, moral and intellectual powers. He describes what he sees as his physical flaws and his personality traits with frank and intimate details. It's the voice of a secure young man, not a sickly child.

Following university, Stoker worked in the Irish Civil Service and wrote short stories in his spare time, some of which were published. In 1878, when he was 31, Stoker became the well-paid business manager for London's Lyceum Theatre, owned by the famous Shakespearean actor Sir Henry Irving (whom some believe is the inspiration for Dracula himself). Stoker was thrust into an exciting world of actors and impresarios. He arranged touring productions through Britain and Canada and made several tours through the United States.

Adding to this career success, Stoker wed Florence Balcombe, whom he had known from Dublin University; Oscar Wilde had been one of her suitors. The couple settled in Chelsea, a neighbourhood popular with theatrical and literary types. The couple soon had a child, Henry (who preferred to be called Noel) and enjoyed a life surrounded by writers, artists, poets and philosophers. Dante Gabriel Rossetti was a neighbour, as was the painter James McNeill Whistler.

Yet there was a dark side to London. Jack the Ripper was spreading terror, and Joseph Merrick, the “Elephant Man,” was shocking the masses. Both (albeit for vastly different reasons) aroused horror, disgust and a deep fascination with the flipside of Victorian values and aesthetics. It would have been impossible for Stoker to be ignorant of these two men, whose lives and actions made headlines. Indeed, the themes they inspired would infect Stoker's writing for decades.

BEFORE DRACULA: THE BEGINNING OF GOTHIC LITERARY OBSESSIONS

Many scholars believe the Gothic novel began in 1764 with Horace Walpole's nightmarish fantasy, The Castle of Otranto. This novel captivated readers with its tale of ghosts, giants, familial curses, haunted paintings, secret passages and forbidden lusts. These were the staple ingredients for every Gothic novel to follow.

The genre exploded over the next century. Countless novels, Penny Dreadfuls and blue books popped up like fast-growing vines feeding on the undercurrent of London's working-class neighbourhoods. Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), Matthew Lewis's The Monk (1796), and George Brewer's The Witch of Ravensworth (1808) set the stage for many Victorian tales of horror that hoped to mimic these early successes.

These works contain an abundance of gothic tropes, including ruined castles filled with rotting corpses and evil monasteries hiding sexually perverse monks and sadistic nuns. Tales of trapped heroines and trapdoors held readers spellbound. The newly literate working classes of early nineteenth-century England discovered the thrilling escape that horror literature could offer, and publishers were ready to fulfil this demand. For those who could not afford to purchase the novels, subscription-based lending libraries became popular. For 4 pounds and 4 pence a year, subscribers were...