Poe is nowhere, but Bram Stoker's mother is everything!

Charlotte Matilda Blake Thornley Stoker

I was going to write a blog post today about the mothers of writers in London in the 1890s, but I found this passage in Barbara Belford's biography of Bram Stoker that I think says it all. To me, this passage shows that, when things are looking down, when you are faced with criticisms and your endeavours are not as successful as you hope, mothers often know best.

Stoker borrowed money to publish Dracula, which didn't make him much money (in his lifetime) and got pretty dismal reviews - even from his friends.

Fortunately authors have mothers. "My dear, it is splendid," gushed Charlotte Stoker, "a thousand miles beyond anything you have written before, and I feel certain will place you very high in the writers of the day - the story and style being deeply sensational, exciting and interesting." To his mother, Stoker had surpassed all competitors. "No book since Mrs Shelley's 'Frankenstein' or indeed any other at all has come near yours in originality, or terror - Poe is nowhere," she wrote. "I have read much but I never met a book like it at all. In its terrible excitement it should make a widespread reputation and much money for you." Unfortunately it did neither during Stoker's lifetime. If Dracula had been published in 1818 at the same time as Frankenstein, instead of at the height of literary realism and naturalism, it would have been a Romantic milestone. Source

Thank you for always being so supportive of me, mom. We writers need moms like you.

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Pornography

Victorian sexuality can be approached from so many directions, including (but not limited to) body image, sexual orientation, masturbation, prostitution, sex education, disease, religion, marriage, and pornography. All of these aspects overlap and influence each other, creating tremendous diversity in attitudes toward sex at any given point in history. Each of these factors provide the context in which sexual identities are created. This post is the eighth in a series of posts that seek to explore that context from the 1890s with an emphasis on male sexuality.

Pornography

What is pornography?

The definition of "pornography" is famously subjective. After all, one man's Venus de Milo is another man's masturbation aid. But researchers generally define the genre as material designed solely for sexual arousal, without further artistic merit. - source

When I started this series of posts, I foolishly thought it would be easy to tell you what pornography was, and though this particular post would contain a string of cheeky photos of women in corsets 120 years ago. I was wrong. Determining what counted as porn was as complicated in the 1890s as it is today. The only thing that has become clear is that Victorian society feared sexual arousal, and by extension the distribution and production of pornographic materials.

In 1885, the Society for the Suppression of Vice was absorbed into the National Vigilance Association. The National Vigilance Association (NVA) was inspired by the need to fight child prostitution. Toward the end of restricting the sale of pornographic material the NVA pursued stricter legislation, and published a pamphlet called Pernicious Literature (1889). 

There can be no two opinions that the dissemination of such vile books must do harm to the youth of the country, into whose hands such literature only too readily falls.

The tie between child prostitution and pornography was compelling in 1890s London. Between Jack the Ripper and the Eliza Armstrong Case, in which a thirteen year-old virgin was sold into sexual slavery, poor and working-class girls were in incredible danger. If you were a upper- or middle-class Victorian, these were the same girls who poured your tea and swept your floor at home. Restricting pornography was portrayed as preventing the corruption and victimization of such girls.

In hindsight, we picture the boys in the loading bay at Selfridges with a handful of dirty pictures (Mr Selfridge is a television show; I'm referring here to an episode in which the young men in the loading bay pass around some fairly tame pictures of women), and remember that this was the only form of sex education available to them. Victorians weren't oblivious to the instructive side of pornography. Doctors also fell victim to the anti-pornography laws for supplying educational material to their patients, such as the Fruits of Philosophy.

Although I definitely support Annie Bessant and Charles Bradlaugh's cause, I have to concede that the creepy reputation of the Victorian doctor was well-earned. Jack the Ripper suspect, Francis Tumblety claimed to be a doctor and sold pornography to supplement his income during the early years of his notorious career. I can't, however, say with any certainty what kind of pornography he was peddling.

Most sex manuals were considered pornographic. Poems and novels could also be considered pornographic and were identified as such by a yellow jacket. Yellow covers warned readers of pornographic content (most French novels sported yellow covers in London). These yellow novels were associated with the aristocrat and the aesthete. So, what about the boys in the loading bay of Selfridges?

Affordable pornography came in the form of pamphlets containing erotic stories, like "Intrigues and Confessions of a Ballet Girl" (1870), which was one of many. These pamphlets didn't have any explicit sex scenes. According to Allison Pease, "the cheaper the pornography, the less body and acts were portrayed." Erotic imagery was also an important part of the penny illustrated weeklies, "and a postcard set depicting a nude gymnast on the swing and trapeze could be purchased in the 1890s at a cost of one shilling for thirty-six poses."

Victorians were definitely kinky. There were sub-genres of pornography, just as there is today. Some of these sub-genres included BDSM (especially riding crops and leather), interracial, same-sex, bestiality, and many others.

Images like this (some with much more
nudity) were sold as cabinet cards.

Rule 34 applied in the Victorian era too; if it existed, there was porn of it. They invented the camera and immediately started taking dirty pictures.

Cabinet card. No date.

I even found Sasquatch porn. It was terrifying. I'm not sharing those pictures here.

And the idea that pornographic images were either hand-drawn or rather tame, like the burlesque photos that have been circulating around the internet, is wrong, very wrong. By the 1890s, pornographic images were could be very explicit, as seen in this auctioneer's photo set.

So, who was buying pornography in the 1890s and how much of it? Although they certainly weren't immune to pornography's allure, the middle-class viewed the poor and the aristocratic as hungry for vice. Unlike masturbation, I don't think every one does porn. The NVA said there could be no two opinions about the harmful effects of pornography, but there were varying definitions about what pornography was, as seen by the trials of Oscar Wilde. When does a poem become pornographic and what makes it so? Is pornography an art? Can art be pornographic?

Dracula 1st edition cover.

Bram Stoker's Dracula originally sported a yellow cover to warn readers of its pornographic contents, which elude the modern reader. Stoker never intended it to be pornographic. Of Dracula, Stoker wrote to William Ewart Gladstone that:

The book is necessarily full of horrors and terrors but I trust that these are calculated to “cleanse the mind by pity & terror.” At any rate there is nothing base in the book and though superstition is brought in with the weapons of superstition I hope it is not irreverent.

Considering him a friend, Stoker had already sent Gladstone, and many other friends, copies of the book. Although the book's cover was yellow, Stoker didn't seem to fear any social repercussions for a book he didn't consider pornographic.

Dracula was nothing compared to My Secret Life (1888).

The next night undressing, he showed me his prick, stiff, as he sat naked on a chair; it was an exceedingly long, but thin article; he told me about frigging, and said he would frig me, if I would frig him. He commenced moving his hand quickly up and down...

Some books were clearly pornographic, just as they are today. In fact, the only difference between Victorian porn and modern porn is that Victorian porn was lower tech, and more people were 'morally' against it. If you have any further insight, please leave a comment.

I will be writing one more post in this series on 1890s male sexuality, in which I plan to connect the different aspects of what influenced sexuality together, concluding this series.

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20 Things You Should Know About Bram Stoker's Wife

Florence Stoker (2 November 1880)

Who was Bram Stoker's wife? Why should we care about her? Stoker wrote Dracula, surely that makes him the interesting one. Nope.

1. Mrs. Stoker's friends called her Florrie.
2. Florrie's middle names were: Anne Lemon. How can we not love someone named for such a delightful citrus fruit?
3. Florrie was born Florence Anne Lemon Balcombe, the daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel James Balcombe of 1 Marino Crescent, Clontarf, and wife Phillippa Anne Marshall.
4. Florrie's family were poor Irish Protestants.

   

   Sketch of Florrie
   by Oscar Wilde

5. Florrie was Oscar Wilde's first love, and he was hers. She never really got over him.
6. Florrie had to break up with Wilde when she got engaged to Stoker.
7. Joseph Pearce writes that: "In Wilde's art, Florence Balcombe's absence had proved far more potent than her presence. He was fully aware of the paradox and learned the lesson it taught. Thereafter, the paradox of pain and the creativity of sorrow would permeate his life and his work."
8. Florrie got married in Dublin in 1878.
9. One of the things that Stoker and Henry Irving first bonded over was the fact they had both married women named "Florence."
10. Their only child was born in 1879.
11. After the birth of their son, Florrie's marriage to Stoker was platonic.
12. To Bernard Partridge George du Maurier once said that the three most beautiful women he had seen were Mrs. Stillman, Mrs. John Hare, and Mrs. Bram Stoker.
13. Florrie wanted to be an actress.
14. There's evidence that Florrie made a stage debut 3 January 1881 because of a letter that Oscar wrote to Ellen Terry: "I send you some flowers - two crowns. Will you accept one of them, whichever you think will suit you best. The other - don't think me treacherous, Nellie - but the other please give to Florrie from yourself. I should like to think that she was wearing something of mine the first night she comes on the stage, that anything of mine should touch her. Of course if you think - but you won't think she will suspect? How could she? She thinks I never loved her, thinks I forget. My God how could I!"
15. That year, the census recorded Florrie's occupation as an "artist." 
16. Sadly, there's no evidence (that I can find) that Florrie continued acting, nor of any other art that she might have created.
    
17. Florrie did, however, keep a painting Wilde made for her for the rest of her life, and always referred to him as "Poor O."
18. The accomplishment history remembers her for was her attempt to destroy every copy of the film Nosferatu (1922) because it violate her copyright on the Dracula franchise.
19. Florrie outlived her husband by 25 years, and wanted her ashes mixed with those of her husband. They weren't.
20. When Florrie's son died in 1961, his ashes were added to his father's urn. Creepy?

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Bram Stoker & Oscar Wilde Kiss & Tell

After many years of lipstick kisses, Oscar Wilde moved to a new tomb in 2011

How did Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde feel about kissing in their writing? I've talked about dancing, and women, and other things. So what about kisses?

Let's start with the Picture of Dorian Gray (1891).

[Sybil Vane] was free in her prison of passion. Her prince, Prince Charming, was with her. She had called on memory to remake him. She had sent her soul to search for him, and it had brought him back. His kiss burned again upon her mouth. Her eyelids were warm with his breath.

From the TV series Penny Dreadful

I was once told that people kiss because it engages so many of the senses: touch, taste, smell... In that passage, this certainly seems true. Sybil is just remembering Dorian's kiss, and the memory of it activates all of these senses. It's quite different from how she kisses her mother.

Sybil rushed to her, flung her arms round her neck, and kissed her. 

When it comes to kissing family members, Sybil likes to take a running leap.

"You might keep some of your kisses for me, Sybil, I think," said the lad [her brother] with a good-natured grumble."

Ah! but you don't like being kissed, Jim," she cried. "You are a dreadful old bear." And she ran across the room and hugged him.

But it seems Sybil is wrong about how much her brother likes being kissed.

There was jealousy in the lad's heart, and a fierce murderous hatred of the stranger who, as it seemed to him, had come between them. Yet, when her arms were flung round his neck, and her fingers strayed through his hair, he softened and kissed her with real affection. 

He even kisses their mother before he leaves. I have to say that there's not this much kissing in my family. We kiss children, and spouses, that's about it. If we ever kiss each other, it's on the cheek. Absolutely none of this "real affection" and hair-touching that Oscar Wilde is talking about.

Dorian Gray (2009)

But back to Sybil and Dorian. There's a big difference in how the two of them remember kissing that reflects on how they each feel about their relationship. As I said before, Sybil's memory is very visceral, whereas Dorian's memory of it literally focuses on the art.

"After the performance was over, I went behind and spoke to her. As we were sitting together, suddenly there came into her eyes a look that I had never seen there before. My lips moved towards hers. We kissed each other. I can't describe to you what I felt at that moment. It seemed to me that all my life had been narrowed to one perfect point of rose-coloured joy. She trembled all over and shook like a white narcissus. Then she flung herself on her knees and kissed my hands. I feel that I should not tell you all this, but I can't help it. Of course, our engagement is a dead secret. She has not even told her own mother. I don't know what my guardians will say. Lord Radley is sure to be furious. I don't care. I shall be of age in less than a year, and then I can do what I like. I have been right, Basil, haven't I, to take my love out of poetry and to find my wife in Shakespeare's plays? Lips that Shakespeare taught to speak have whispered their secret in my ear. I have had the arms of Rosalind around me, and kissed Juliet on the mouth."

Spoiler: Dorian loves Sybil for her art, but doesn't like the person she really is. He leaves her. She's not very happy about that.

"I think I should never have known it if you had not kissed me—if we had not kissed each other. Kiss me again, my love. Don't go away from me. I couldn't bear it. Oh! don't go away from me."

That is part of a desperate plea on her part.

Sybil Vane commits suicide, and Dorian imagines kissing himself, while looking at his hideous portrait.

Once, in boyish mockery of Narcissus, he had kissed, or feigned to kiss, those painted lips that now smiled so cruelly at him.

But, when she's dead, he does try to get some memorial of her.

"You must do me a drawing of Sibyl, Basil. I should like to have something more of her than the memory of a few kisses and some broken pathetic words."

Moving on to Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897).

Immediately, the kisses become more sexual, as Jonathan Harker is in Dracula's castle with the three brides of Dracula.

I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips. It is not good to note this down, lest some day it should meet Mina’s eyes and cause her pain; but it is the truth.

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

“Go on! You are first, and we shall follow; yours is the right to begin.” The other added:

“He is young and strong; there are kisses for us all.”

"Yours is the right to begin" is an interesting choice of words, most likely borrowed from the grimoires to give this scene an occult feel.

Of course, the Count saves Jonathan from this 'terrifying' scene, but promises the ladies they can kiss him at will, when he has fulfilled his use.

Big surprise in Dracula is that vampires love to kiss.

But there's also some regular courting going on in this story. There's some kissing when Lucy tells Mr Morris that her heart belongs to another, then as he leaves, he says:

‘Little girl, I hold your hand, and you’ve kissed me, and if these things don’t make us friends nothing ever will. Thank you for your sweet honesty to me, and good-bye.’

 Of course, the man Lucy loves loves her back.

Besides, it was all so confused; it seemed only a moment from his coming into the room till both his arms were round me, and he was kissing me. I am very, very happy, and I don’t know what I have done to deserve it.

Mina and Lucy in NBC's TV series Dracula.

Much has been written to compare Mina and Lucy. Lucy kisses people when she is breaking up with them, she kisses passionately, with both arms around her. Mina is married and her kisses to Jonathan are promises. Lucy dies because of vampires, whereas good men are able to save Mina's soul. Is this a commentary on women's sexuality? Yes, it probably is. But I like it when Mina and Lucy kiss each other. In fact, this is probably my favourite line in the whole book. From Lucy to Mina:

Oceans of love and millions of kisses, and may you soon be in your own home with your husband.

When Lucy is dying, and under Van Helsing's care, he gives her fiancé permission to kiss her. Implicit in this is that when a woman is sick, she no longer has the authority to offer, or deny, kisses to her intended.

“The brave lover, I think, deserve another kiss, which he shall have presently.” [Van Helsing]

Lucy actually thanks Van Helsing for this aspect of his 'service' with a kiss.

Very shortly after she opened her eyes in all their softness, and putting out her poor, pale, thin hand, took Van Helsing’s great brown one; drawing it to her, she kissed it. “My true friend,” she said, in a faint voice, but with untellable pathos, “My true friend, and his! Oh, guard him, and give me peace!”

“I swear it!” he said solemnly, kneeling beside her and holding up his hand, as one who registers an oath. Then he turned to Arthur, and said to him: “Come, my child, take her hand in yours, and kiss her on the forehead, and only once.”

Of course, when Lucy is dead, Arthur kisses her corpse.

he went back and took her dead hand in his and kissed it, and bent over and kissed her forehead.

But we can't overlook the fact that, in Dracula, kisses are contagious. As Van Helsing explains:

Friend Arthur, if you had met that kiss which you know of before poor Lucy die; or again, last night when you open your arms to her, you would in time, when you had died, have become nosferatu, as they call it in Eastern Europe, and would all time make more of those Un-Deads that so have fill us with horror.

 So, after Lucy dies, they have to really kill her. Then, Van helping says:

“And now, my child, you may kiss her. Kiss her dead lips if you will, as she would have you to, if for her to choose. For she is not a grinning devil now—not any more a foul Thing for all eternity. No longer she is the devil’s Un-Dead. She is God’s true dead, whose soul is with Him!”

Arthur bent and kissed her...

Next, people start kissing Mina. Van Helsing kisses and is kissed by her, as acknowledgement of their friendship. After Mina's own husband kisses her, he asks God to bless her.

After Mina becomes sick, she polices her own kissing.

Winona Ryder as Mina (1992).

“Unclean, unclean! I must touch him or kiss him no more. Oh, that it should be that it is I who am now his worst enemy, and whom he may have most cause to fear.”

The message here seems to be that virtuous married women, although not immune to corruption, have more control over their own kisses, and, by extension, their own bodies. As is clear in this scene, where Mina is laying ill.

Then she raised her head proudly, and held out one hand to Van Helsing who took it in his, and, after stooping and kissing it reverently, held it fast. The other hand was locked in that of her husband, who held his other arm thrown round her protectingly.

In that kissing scene, Mina chooses who gets to kiss her and where, with her husband protectively watching over her.

Mina and Jonathan's kisses continue to be followed by promises, even when given to cement friendships.

Mina and I both felt so, and simultaneously we each took one of the old man’s hands and bent over and kissed it. Then without a word we all knelt down together, and, all holding hands, swore to be true to each other.

As they ride through the snow in pursuit of the Count, Mina is seeking the three women her husband wrote about.

It was as though my memories of all Jonathan’s horrid experience were befooling me; for the snow flakes and the mist began to wheel and circle round, till I could get as though a shadowy glimpse of those women that would have kissed him.

Kisses that are uncontrolled make men weak, in Dracula.

Then the beautiful eyes of the fair woman open and look love, and the voluptuous mouth present to a kiss—and man is weak. 

By comparing kisses in The Picture of Dorian Gray and Dracula, the message we get from both of them is that kisses need to mean the same thing to both (or all) the parties involved. Also, it's possible that there was more kissing in the Wilde family than there should have been!

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Who was Dracula?

Who was Dracula? Ever since the novel was published in 1897, scholars and fans have been trying to answer this question. In honour of Bram Stoker's birthday, I'm sharing a few of the ideas I've heard over the years.

1. Vlad the Impaler.

Vlad the Impaler was the Prince of Wallachia a member of the House of Drăculești, and descended from a member of the Order of the Dragon. The Order of the Dragon was founded to protect Christianity in Eastern Europe. After his death, Vlad became a folk hero in Romania and parts of Eastern Europe for protecting the Romanian population. The nickname "Impaler" is part of the folk legend, that he impaled his enemies on the battle field. During his lifetime, he gained an excessive reputation for cruelty.

Vlad III Prince of Wallachia

In Dracula: Sense and Nonsense (2005), Elizabeth Miller argues that Vlad the Impaler was not the inspiration for the famous vampire. Because we didn't have access to Stoker's notes until fairly recently, many myths about the novel were created through speculation, and this was one of them.

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

It's still very appealing to the imagination, and permeates films about vampires, including Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992).

Sir Henry Irving

2. Sir Henry Irving.

Irving was one of the most famous actors in the world in Stoker's day, and he was Stoker's boss, the owner of the Lyceum Theatre, where Stoker worked between 1878 and 1898. Stoker adored Irving, modeled many of his own opinions after Irvings, claiming in Irving's biography to have been able to speak with the same mind as Irving.

Strong arguments have been advanced that Irving was Stoker's real-life inspiration for Dracula's character, the way that he moved, and commanded all of those around him. Stoker even wanted Irving to play Dracula on the stage. Irving refused.

Irving and Stoker getting into a cab.

3. Oscar Wilde.

Oscar Wilde

If you read my blog, you know who Oscar Wilde was. He and Stoker were long time friends, going back to Dublin, where Stoker stole Wilde's childhood sweetheart, Florence Balcombe.

Theories that advance Wilde as an inspiration for the vampire, usually draw on Wilde's lifestyle, especially his homosexuality, turning vampirism into a metaphor for homosexuality. Stoker was extremely sympathetic toward his friend during his infamous trials of 1895, and may have been homosexual himself, as has been evidenced in his letters to Walt Whitman.

Who do you think inspired the world's most famous vampire?

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Physiognomy and Vampires

Now regarded as pseudoscience, physiognomy, the art of detecting one's character through the shape of their face, was widely accepted among many writers in London in the 1890s, including Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde.

The plot of the Picture of Dorian Gray uses magic to overcome the supposed laws of physiognomy to make the protagonist appear kinder than he is, turning him into an undetectable monster.

From Stoker's novel to the history of vampires in film, the way a vampire looks deeply effects the way its victims see it. Who would you rather invite into your home, Max Schreck or Brad Pitt?

Even though we've rejected any validity physiognomy ever had, the Victorian writer's faith in this pseudoscience has shaped the gothic novel.

If we remember that Victorian Londoners feared other Victorian Londoners more than anything else, we can better understand their acceptance of a guide to reading the appearance of others in everyday urban settings, as a tool that would theoretically better enable them to navigate their landscapes more safely. The 18th- and 19th-century rise in the popularity of physiognomy can also be traced alongside the rise of the city, during industrialization, and read as a coping mechanism for people, terrified of their urban lives.

He has succeeded after all, then, in his design in getting to London, and it was he I saw. He has got younger, and how? Van Helsing is the man to unmask him and hunt him out ... Doctor, you don’t know what it is to doubt everything, even yourself. No, you don’t; you couldn’t with eyebrows like yours. - Jonathan Harker's Journal in Dracula (1897)

That the Count in Dracula can make himself look younger makes him a hidden danger, which needs to be unmasked, by someone with trustworthy eyebrows, like Van Helsing.

Physiognomy didn't just influence Victorian fiction, but was the subject of volumes of Victorian writing to the extent that a cursory internet search can produce titles from the period that are available for free online.

Encyclopædia of Human Nature and Physiognomy (1889)
Physiognomy and Expression (1890)
How to Read Character (1890)
A System of Practical and Scientific Physiognomy (1890)
Physiognomy Illustrated Or, Nature's Revelations of Character (1891)
Physiognomy (1892)
Our Noses (1893)
Faciology (1893)
New Physiognomy or Signs of Character (1894)
Wells' New Descriptive Chart for Giving a Delineation of Character (1895)
Physiognomical Register (1895)

Of course, physiognomy was also used to justify Victorian racism:

San Francisco Call, Volume 81, Number 167,
16 May 1897

A 'science,' based on judging people for how they look, is inarguably discriminatory in its very nature, though we still do it all the time. We say a person has 'kind eyes,' or that 'eyes are the window to the soul, and we live in a world that has institutionalized racial profiling.

If you are interested in pursuing this subject further, I recommend: Physiognomy in the European Novel: Faces and Fortunes (2014) by Graeme Tytler.

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Sherlock Holmes and Retired Copyright

Thanks to a legal battle between author, Leslie Klinger, and the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the tales of Sherlock Holmes are now in the public domain. What does that mean?

Works are moved from their protective copyright status to the public domain to balance the public’s interest in open access with the property interest of copyright holders. Overwhelmingly, works in the public domain are so old that their intellectual property rights are no longer applicable. Most of the works discussed in this blog are part of the public domain because enough time has passed since they were first published. Likewise, most of the Sherlock Holmes stories were already in the public domain before Klinger took the estate to court.

Sherlock Holmes became a literary sensation in the 1890s, the thirst for which didn’t dry up when the decade ended. To feed public demand, Conan Doyle continued writing and publishing Sherlock Holmes mysteries until 1927. While most of the Sherlock Holmes canon was moved into the public domain, appearing on public domain web sites, like Project Gutenberg, stories published between 1923 and 1927 were still protected under US copyright law.

The legal status of these last ten Sherlock Holmes stories complicated the legal status of the rest of the Sherlock Holmes stories because characters in fiction are part of a work’s intellectual property. When Klinger published his previous books, inspired by Conan Doyle, she had to pay a fee to his estate. Upon the publication of her second book, she decided to challenge the copyright status and won, thereby moving the complete set of Sherlock Holmes stories into the public domain.

These controls over intellectual property influence the portrayal of characters, who have become classic tropes throughout literature and film. For instance, the Bram Stoker estate tried, but failed to maintain the kind of control over portrayals of Dracula that Conan Doyle’s estate maintained over Sherlock Holmes. As a result, we see rich and varied interpretations of Dracula’s character in literature and film dating back to the 1920s. Conan Doyle’s heirs previously controlled and restricted the ways in which Sherlock Holmes could be interpreted. It will be fascinating to see what happens next!

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Dracula After Stoker

Something about finding Dracula serialized in the Washington Times five years after Bram Stoker died struck me. In 1917, it still looks very Victorian and domestic with the images around it.

Although Dracula wasn't as successful and Stoker would have liked, during his life, Florence Stoker (born: Florence Anne Lemon Balcombe - I love the name "Lemon") protected its copyright viciously and benefited from a good income, long after her husband's death. Indeed, she is best remembered for suppressing Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's film Nosferatu (1922), which was based on her husband's novel.

Screenwriter, Henrik Galeen changed the main character's names and some certain key points, but the resemblance to Stoker's novel was still undeniable. As Stoker's literary executor, Florence never gave permission for the adaptation, or received payment for it. She was furious and demanded the financial reparation that was due to the estate. She also wanted all of the negatives and prints of the film  destroyed.

Despite her success in court, Nosferatu survived and slowly began to resurface in the late 1920s, with the first American screenings taking place in New York City and Detroit in 1929.

Surely she got payment for the novel's serialization in the Washington Times.

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Dracula's Whitby (Part Two)

Yesterday, I started sharing the pics I've been finding of Whitby in the 1890s, but ran out of time because there are so many great images out there. I'm looking at these pictures to get some sense of where Bram Stoker was, when he was researching and writing Dracula. Now, I want to pick up where I left off, but, as you know, this is a blog about my research tangents.

While searching for photos for the Whitby portion of my story, I discovered Frank Sutcliffe, a professional Whitby photographer, who was contemporary to Stoker. Sutcliffe might have dined with Stoker in Whitby, as they were both friends of John Ruskin.

I've chosen photos from Sutcliffe's collection to represent the time period that Stoker would have been visiting Whitby and also just because I think they are neat. Hope you enjoy!

"Stern Realities" 1890.

"Piggy Back" 1890s

Unknown (found by Tanya)

Fisherfolk

A Whitby Street

November (1890)

Robin Hood's Bay (1900)

Boat in Harbour (1890)

Through The Station Doorway

These last two are unknown.

Now that my head is full of wonderful new setting for Stoker in Whitby in the 1890s, I have some other writing to do!

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Dracula's Whitby (Part One)

A pictorial tour of Whitby in the 1890s.

  

Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which is the scene of part of "Marmion," where the girl was built up in the wall. It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits; there is a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows. - Dracula

Modern-day tourists to the town of Whitby frequently ask where they might find Dracula’s grave. There is no grave because there was no Dracula, but Whitby is one of the locations where Bram Stoker dreamed him up. Stoker was inspired by the town’s history, its red rooftops, and its ghostly Abbey.

Dracula is a source of tourism for Whitby today. Even the lawyer’s address, Number 7 The Crescent, has been turned into a bed and breakfast. Today, I’ve been hunting for images of what Whitby was like when Stoker stayed there in the 1890s. This is what I've found so far:

This elegant Victorian lady is walking past down Pier Road in Whitby away from the sea and the building she as just passed that you can see the corner of is the well know Magpie cafe today (1888).

This spa would have interested Florence Stoker.
I don't know the date, but am guessing 1880s-1900s.

St Michael's Church - Built 1847, demolished 1977.

Gibsons shop. Church street.

Victorian children captured on camera near the Scarborough and Whitby Breweries branch in Pickering.

Circa 1900 boy and dog in Whitby.
The Stokers likely brought their son to Whitby too.

1890s view of the East Cliff.

I found the above image on an interesting site that seeks to find "the authentic holiday lodgings of Mina and Lucy." I was also able to find another image of the spa that I found (above).

The Spa Pavilion just below North Terrace, as Mina and Lucy would have known it.

I seem to run out of space for pictures in this post and should really be writing my book. Be sure to check out my follow-up post for more of the pictures I found of Bram Stoker's Whitby.

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