Humans of London: Bram Stoker

Again, my twist on Humans of New York, but London in the 1890s...

Yesterday I posted one for Arthur Conan Doyle.

Follow me on Twitter @TinyApplePress and like the Facebook page for updates!

If you have enjoyed the work that I do, please support my Victorian Dictionary Project!

The Best of Writers in London in the 1890s

There's a widget tin the column on the left that lists my most popular posts. The things that appear there sometimes surprise me.

Now that it's been more than two years since I decided to blog my writing tangents, I thought it was time to compile a list of my favourite posts. They may not be my greatest hits, but these tangents represent some of my favourite ideas.

In chronological order:

1. A Bunch of Hairy Men.
Using this helpful chart, I now know that the style of Bram Stoker's beard was called 'dangle swangles.'

2. The Arminus Vanbery Myth.
It turns out the guy, who academics thought was Stoker's vampire informant, might not have known anything about vampires at all, but was, in fact, an international spy. He also totally looks like Antonio Banderas, who once played a vampire called, Armin. Coincidence? I don't think so...

3. The Top Ten Reasons Oscar Wilde Hated His Brother.
The squabbles between Oscar and Willie Wilde went beyond sibling rivalry. Willie was a danger to himself and his family. Too bad Alcoholics Anonymous wasn't popular in London yet.

4. Never Let Edmund Gosse Arrange The Seating Plan at Dinner.
This is just a little anecdote about a literary dinner party on 25 July 1888, but it is telling nonetheless.

5. 100 Random Things About Oscar Wilde.
For my 100th post, I shared 100 random things about Oscar Wilde. When it comes to the great aesthete, I just can't get enough.

6. Sherlock the Bully.
This guy's name is Charles Brookfield. He was the first actor to play Sherlock Holmes on the stage and he was a bully.

7. Immoral Essays by Bram Stoker.
For the most part, I've been disappointed with The Lost Journal of Bram Stoker, but it's nice to see that he had a sense of humour.

8. How to Curse like a Gentleman: the F-Bomb.
This post was fun to write and I liked making the images. It also inspired the Victorian Dictionary Project.

9. The Chamber of Horrors (Waxworks).
This subject was fun to research and could be the next theme for American Horror Story!

10. 20 Things You Should Know About Bram Stoker's Wife.
I love Florence Stoker. She is an important character in my novel.

In compiling this list, I've realized that most of my posts really are about Stoker and Wilde. I hope you love them as much as I do.

Follow me on Twitter @TinyApplePress and like the Facebook page for updates!

If you have enjoyed the work that I do, please support my Victorian Dictionary Project!

The Marriage Question

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 seventh in a series of posts that seek to explore that context from the 1890s with an emphasis on male sexuality.

Marriage

“A man who moralizes is a hypocrite, and a woman who does so is invariably plain.” - Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan.

Victorians generally viewed heterosexual marriage as beneficial to both men and women. Marriage and motherhood were the ultimate goal for a young woman. In the separate spheres ideology, women were portrayed as the angel of the household and a wife would act as her husband's moral compass. In this view, corrupt men could be reformed by such a woman.

Heterosexist views of sexuality painted women into asexual angels. In terms of sexual relations with their husbands, new brides were advised to "GIVE LITTLE, GIVE SELDOM, AND ABOVE ALL, GIVE GRUDGINGLY. Otherwise what could have been a proper marriage could become an orgy of sexual lust." - Ruth Smythers (1894).

Even today, the heterosexist binary view of gender paints men with sex drives that they will not be able to control if women aren't chaste enough. Ideally, the Victorian wife's refusal of sex tempered her husband's raging libido. Of course, we know none of this is true. Men do not necessarily have higher sex drives than women, and many people would give anything to turn their marriages into "an orgy of sexual lust." But, in the Victorian era, if you were a man, who masturbated or thought about having sex with men, marriage to a woman, who would ideally refuse to have sex with you, would somehow save your life.

History is full of examples of this not working out very well. Oscar Wilde is one example, though friends speculated, at the time, that, perhaps, he had married the wrong woman, and that if he had married his first love (Bram Stoker's wife), none of his same-sex relationships would have ever taken place.

Florence Stoker is an example of the ideal Victorian wife. The Stokers had one child. After he was born, his parents stopped having sex. Although there's evidence that Bram Stoker may have had many homosexual fantasies, there's no evidence that he ever cheated on his wife, even though they spent most of their time apart (he was busy working and travelling).

Although I don't think that Oscar marrying Florence would have prevented his affairs, I don't think that either of them were happy in their marriages, even though Florence was such a 'good' wife. They pined for each other, and neither were completely happy with their spouse. So, what happened when someone was unhappy with their spouse in the 1890s?

I've already mentioned 'the marriage question' in my post on sexual orientation. The marriage question focused on divorce. Ironically, the divorce rate in England and Wales in the 1890s was the lowest in Europe. However, its estimated legal separation rate was the highest.

Bram Stoker's employer, Henry Irving got married in July 1869. One night in November 1871, when she was pregnant with their second child, his wife criticized his work: "Are you going on making a fool of yourself like this all your life?" They were riding in a carriage, and Irving stepped out of it at Hyde Park Corner. Their paths would never cross again. They never divorced, and when Irving was knighted for his work, his wife styled herself "Lady Irving."

Irving's case was not exceptional. Contrary to popular belief, marriage was very unstable in Victorian times. Private separation deeds were common place and not confined to the upper-classes, as poor and working class people also sought to avoid the embarrassing scandal of divorce.

Martha Tabram, possibly the first victim of Jack the Ripper, had parents who separated, then had a troubled marriage herself, due to her alcoholism. Her husband left her in 1875, and paid her 12 shillings a week for three years. He reduced this amount to two shillings and sixpence when she moved in with another man.

Further contradicting popular beliefs about Victorian marriages, many couples of all classes lived together without ever getting married. Oscar Wilde's brother lived with his second wife for about a year before they were married. In the Murder of Mrs and Baby Hogg, we learned that the killer lived with a man before moving in with Mr Hogg, and had assumed that first man's name without marrying him.

With real life providing so many examples that contradicted the mainstream ideal of what marriage should be, writers and readers in the 1890s questioned the institution of marriage on legal grounds, and based on human desire. With the support of women writers mentioned elsewhere in this blog, legal reforms began to support women's property rights in marriage, and after it. As the Darwinian Revolution began to scientize the way people thought about themselves and their basic instincts, people questioned the monogamy that traditional marriage demanded. If men supposedly had such strong libidos, maybe they weren't meant to be with just one woman their entire lives.

The marriage question, also sometimes referred to as 'the sexual problem,' brought with it the concept of 'varietism.' According to Anne Humphreys, 'varietism' meant anything from promiscuity to serial monogamy, and the language used to discuss it was cloaked in evolutionary theory. This need to describe sexuality in terms of evolutionary theory ties back into people's needs to justify desires that were not condoned by their religious beliefs.

Although they thought and wrote about it an awful lot, the marriage question was never really answered in the 1890s. Though they thought about 'varietism' and engaged in alternatives to conventional married life, none of it was ever fully embraced by the more dominant aspects of their heterosexist culture. In 1912, Dr Muller-Lyer wrote:

The body of available and necessary knowledge to be taught the young became larger, the task of imparting it more difficult, and it was essential that family life should become consolidated, for much of this instruction could only be imparted by and in the family. And therefore monogamy became more frequent and met with definite approval, and unrestrained varietism in sex relations began to appear harmful, exceptional, and disreputable.

Consequently, the marriage question was thought about and written about throughout the twentieth century, and the way that we discuss it reflects the challenges of our times. Like most nineteenth and early-twentieth century German texts on evolutionary theory, eugenics, and race, Muller-Lyer's book is loaded with racism and classism, but he does suggest that we stop morally judging our ancestors for their sexuality, which is an attitude that should be applied to the way that we think of our contemporaries as well.

Follow me on Twitter @TinyApplePress and like the Facebook page for updates!

If you have enjoyed the work that I do, please consider supporting my Victorian Dictionary Project!

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?

Follow me on Twitter @TinyApplePress and like the Facebook page for updates!

If you have enjoyed the work that I do, please consider supporting my Victorian Dictionary Project!

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.

Follow me on Twitter @TinyApplePress and like the Facebook page for updates!

Inside Bram Stoker's House

Looking East along Cheyne Walk in the 1860s.

I've been feeling very visual in my writing lately. I also edit as I write. Sometimes, editing can be heartbreaking, so I'm sharing a passage that I just removed from my book.

Upstairs halls tell you more about a family than all of their downstairs rooms combined. Downstairs rooms are for showing off. Upstairs halls reveal the way that people live, the things they leave on the floor, the bedroom doors they leave open and shut. Truly, upstairs halls are more revealing than bedrooms. The floor in the Stokers’ upstairs hall was spotless, which is a sign of a depressed housekeeper or housewife. Elevated, Noel’s nursery was on the third floor. Mr. Stoker’s bedroom door was closed, as was Florrie's, but this she opened, allowing me inside. 

I replaced that passage with "Florrie opened her bedroom door."

Honestly, I don't know what the Stoker's house looked like inside. That was pure imagination. I've only seen pictures of the Stokers' houses on Google Street View. I do, however, have this information from the 1881 census:

Reference: 1881 Census of England and Wales
RG11/74/78/0656 

London, Chelsea, Chelsea South, District 9a, Page 1, Household 4 

Address: 27 Cheyne Walk 

1 inhabited house at this address 

Living there: 

Bram Stoker, Head. Married, male, age 33. Theatrical Manager M.A. [I'm assuming the M.A. means Master of Arts - Jill]. Born in Dublin [Ireland]. 

Florence Stoker, Wife. Married, female, age 21. Artist. Born in Falmouth [Cornwall, England].

Irving N. Stoker, Son. Unmarried, male, 15 months. [Occupation is blank.] Born in London. 

George Stoker, Brother. Unmarried, male, 26. Physician & Surgeon. Born in Dublin [Ireland]. 

Elizabeth Jarrald, Servant. Widow, female, 30. Nurse. [Place of birth is blank.] 

Harriett Daw, Servant. Unmarried, female, 21. Cook. Born in Middlesex, Nottinghill. [Notting Hill, part of London.] 

Emma Barton, Servant. Unmarried, female, 15. Housemaid. Born in Essex, Woodford. [Woodford, Essex.]

I think it's interesting that Mrs. Stoker's occupation appears as "artist." I know that she wanted to be an actress and appeared in at least one play, but I haven't seen anything about her being any other kind of artist. At that address, they lived a block from Dante Gabrielle Rossetti, overlooking the Thames.

By 1891, the Stoker family lived at 18 St Leonards Terrace. Bram's brother George still lived with them, but they had new servants, Ada Howard and Mary Drinkwater.

Not actually Ada Howard & Mary Drinkwater,
but somebody like them.

On St Leonards Terrace, the Stokers would entertain people, like Mark Twain, who remembered Mrs. Stoker fondly in one of his letters. I'm looking for photos and more information about both houses. Any help is appreciated and I will share what I learn.

April 10, 2014: To this, I would like to add that The Lost Journal of Bram Stoker lists Dr. George Stoker at 14 Hertford St, London with his wife Agnes, two children, a cook, a parlour maid, a housemaid, and a 24 year-old governess called Minna. That sounds like information the editors gathered from the census, which completely contradicts what I thought I read in the census. If anyone can double check the 1891 census, I would love to hear from you, as I no longer trust my memory on this point and The Lost Journal doesn't record a source for this information.

Follow me on Twitter @TinyApplePress and like the Facebook page for updates!

50 Random Things about Bram Stoker

Bram Stoker

1. Bram Stoker was a good dancer and especially liked to waltz.

2. Stoker was named after his father, a clerk at Dublin castle, who walked miles every day to work for fifty years.

George Stoker

3. Stoker loved libraries. Who doesn’t?

4. Two of Stoker’s brother’s became doctors.

5. His brother, Dr. George Stoker, came to live with him, after travelling through Eastern Europe. Stoker was writing and researching Dracula at the time. George’s stories about his travels and the people he met might have informed the novel.

6. Stoker stole Oscar Wilde’s first girlfriend.

7.Stoker liked to use the word “weird.”

8. At age twenty-two, Stoker fell in love with the poetry of Walt Whitman and wrote Whitman a fan letter that sparked a great literary friendship.

9. Whitman thought of Stoker as a son: “he has always treated me like a best son.”

10. Whitman’s then-controversial and homoerotic Leaves of Grass was Stoker’s first encounter with the poet. He said: “Needless to say that amongst young men the objectionable passages were searched for and more noxious ones expected.”

11. The young Stoker described himself as follows:

“I am six feet two inches high and twelve stone weight naked and used to be forty-one or forty-two inches round the chest. I am ugly but strong and determined and have a large bump over my eyebrows. I have a heavy jaw and a big mouth and thick lips—sensitive nostrils—a snubnose and straight hair. I am equal in temper and cool in disposition and have a large amount of self control and am naturally secretive to the world. I take a delight in letting people I don’t like— people of mean or cruel or sneaking or cowardly disposition—see the worst side of me.”

12. Stoker was often nervous having conversations in groups, but could speak easily one on one.

13. Stoker attributed his love of writing to a long illness he had in early childhood, which prevented him from even being able to walk. He said his earliest memories were of being carried from place to place and “I was naturally thoughtful and the leisure of long illness gave opportunity for many thoughts which were fruitful according to their kind in later years.”

Charlotte Matilda Blake Thornley Stoker

14. Stoker’s mother was a politically active feminist, who told her sickly son gruesome tales.

15. Although Stoker’s writing often comes across as misogynistic, he writes more complex believable female characters than male characters.

16. His female characters usually have names that begin with the letter M, Maggie, Mina, Mimi, Marjory, Margaret...

17. Stoker usually didn’t write more than a page at a time.

18. In spite of this, Stoker wrote most of his stories very quickly, with the exception of Dracula, which was at least seven years in the making.

19. Although there are many theories on who inspired Dracula, Henry Irving is one of my favourite because Stoker asked him to play Dracula in the theatrical version of his novel. Irving, however, refused.

20. Irving liked to make fun of him for his Irish national pride and support for Home Rule.

21. Stoker always took it personally when Irving made fun of him.

22. When Stoker first met Irving, he helped save him from bankruptcy and said: “no artist can properly attend to his own business.”

23. This led to many years of employment and an elevated position in London Society as Irving’s business manager, but Stoker didn’t always feel so secure in this role and faced the competition and ridicule of a young journalist, later employed by Irving as personal secretary, Louis Frederick Austin.

Henry Irving

24. Austin and Stoker didn’t get along and Austin claimed that Stoker was lying when he said he did most of Irving’s speech writing and press statements for him.

25. Stoker spent most of his career working on the business end of theatre and believed strongly in government subsidies for the arts.

“The strain of ceaseless debt must always be the portion of any one who endeavours to uphold serious drama in a country where subsidy is not a custom. In the future, the State or the Municipality may find it a duty to support such effort, on the ground of public good. Otherwise the artist must pay with shortened life the price of his high endeavour.”

26. Although Stoker wound up devoting most of his time to the theatre, he wanted to move to London to be a writer before he ever met Irving.

27. While living in London, Stoker also managed to earn a law degree.

28. Stoker was a night owl. He enjoyed staying up all night and seeing the dawn break.

29. Stoker always took a bath before going to bed.

30. Stoker liked thinking of himself as large.

31. Stoker preferred home-cooking to eating at restaurants.

Irving and Stoker getting into a cab.

32. Stoker felt it showed poor manners to have a second drink when someone else was buying.

33. Stoker thought brandy was good for your health.

34. Stoker’s son claims his dad got the idea for Dracula from a nightmare he had after eating too much dressed crab.

35. Stoker was interested in mesmerism and the occult sciences. He had strong links to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

36. Stoker was fascinated by dreams. He studied dream theory, while writing Dracula.

37. Stoker described watching someone high on opium as moving and speaking, “like a man in a dream.”

38. Stoker’s French wasn’t very good.

39. As much as Stoker liked German folklore, he didn’t speak German.

40. Van Helsing was an amalgamation of at least three different characters Stoker wanted to include in the book, including a German professor.

41.Although Stoker supported Home Rule, as an Irish Nationalist, he was also a monarchist, in support of England as a force for good in the world.

42. Stoker was against any form of violent Irish nationalism.

43. Contrary to popular belief, there is no evidence that Stoker died of syphilis - only that he suffered from a number of Strokes before he died. It’s possible that he was also suffering from depression toward the end of his life.

44. Stoker didn’t like giving up his career with Irving at the Lyceum. He was upset that Irving sold the theatre without consulting him. This might have caused the onset of depression.

45. Even though Stoker’s wife always wanted to and even tried starting a career as an actress, Stoker considered Ellen Terry the best actress of their time. Terry was the female star of the Lyceum. Stoker said:

“Ellen Terry is a great actress, the greatest of her time; and she will have her niche in history. She is loved by every one who ever knew her. Her presence is a charm, her friendship a delight ; her memory will be a national as well as a personal possession.”

46. Stoker’s wife was considered one of the three most beautiful women in England, but their marriage was platonic after the birth of their only child.

Florence Stoker (presumably photoshopped, but still cool)

47. Although the documentary Dracula’s Bram Stoker makes a strong argument that Stoker was gay, there’s no evidence that he ever cheated on his wife with a man or a woman.

48. When Stoker died in 1912, Sotheby’s auctioned off his library. Whitman’s lecture on Lincoln, which he bequeathed to Stoker, sold for $25.

49. His wife tried to put a stop to the film: Nosferatu (1922) because, as Stoker’s widow, she owned the rights to Dracula, hadn’t been consulted and hadn’t been paid any royalties. This resulted in a lengthy court case, which she eventually won, while trying to destroy any and all copies of the film. As much as I like her as a historical figure, I’m glad she didn’t succeed.

50. On his 165th birthday, Stoker was honoured with a Google Doodle.

Follow me on Twitter @TinyApplePress and like the Facebook page for updates!

Top Ten Reasons Oscar Wilde Hated His Brother

Oh, brothers! I don't care for brothers. My elder brother won't die, and my younger brothers seem never to do anything else. - The Picture of Dorian Gray

If you think your brother is a jerk, you should meet Oscar Wilde’s brother. After spending some time with William “Willie” Wilde, Herbert Beerbohm Tree wrote:

"...did I tell you that I saw a good deal of [Oscar's] brother Willie at Broadstairs? Quel monstre! Dark, oily, suspect yet awfully like Oscar: he has Oscar's coy, carnal smile & fatuous giggle & not a little of Oscar's esprit. But he is awful - a veritable tragedy of family-likeness"

If you have ever quarreled with a sibling, you probably appreciate the phrase “a veritable tragedy of family-likeness.” You might even be trying to commit it to memory for future use.

Oscar would have appreciated it as well because his relationship with Willie was turbulent, to say the least. He actually based Algernon, in The Importance of Being Earnest, on his brother Willie, during a time when the two were trying to reconcile their differences. Sadly, the time when things appeared to be easiest between the two of them was the time Willie inflicted the most damage on Oscar’s life, the time when Oscar needed his family most. The two would never speak again.

There’s so much I could say about what made Willie a “monstre” of a brother, as Willie provides the subject of a novel that I’m currently writing, but, because this is the internet, I’m going to try to limit it to the ten reasons Oscar Wilde’s brother was worse than yours, after which you should go give your brother a hug!

1. Willie publicly mocked Oscar’s life and work.

While married to the wealthy widow and publishing giant, Mrs. Frank Leslie, Willie frequented the public drinking places of New York’s rich and famous, where he would mock and parody Oscar’s writing, as well as criticize him for drug use.

Oscar would read about Willie’s behaviour in a paper that reported on one of Willie’s nights at the Lotos Club, where he had...

...hilariously entertained the club members by impersonating Oscar’s voice, parodying his poetry and immitating his aesthetic mannerisms. - Ashley Robins 

Willie’s opinions were unpopular and probably reflected insecurities about himself, for, after six months of marriage, his rich wife returned him to London and filed for divorce. She was unhappy in the marriage because Willie drank so much he could not satisfy her sexually and he didn’t do any work or writing.

To be fair, Willie didn’t keep his intentions for his time in New York a secret from Leslie, his motto at the time was:

What America needs is a leisure class and I am determined to introduce one.

2. His drinking made Willie a public spectacle.

Willie embarrassed Oscar, even when he wasn’t trying to. Beerbohm Tree later wrote of Willie:

My sister Constance came home one day and summoned my mother and me; she was quivering to tell us what had happened. She knew in advance it was the sort of thing my mother would adore. Well, Constance had been walking along the street and met Willie Wilde – Oscar’s brother. In one hand, he was carrying a huge leg of mutton by the narrow part; with his free hand he swept off his hat and bent over double in a grand, ceremonial bow. There was something so grotesquely funny in the way he did it, conveying both the mutton and the bow. We decided it was a first class thing.

3. Willie took money from old people and babies. 

Drink would eventually kill Willie Wilde, but first it would render him unable to support himself, so that he sponged money off of his mother and angrily stamped his foot at her, when she refused to give it to her. Even when Oscar was bankrupt and going to jail, his family, including Willie’s pregnant wife, depended on him for the financial support that Willie was unable to provide.

This had been going on for years, as before Willie married that woman, he was reported to have stolen the piggy bank from the children of another woman he was hoping to marry.

Much of the surviving correspondence between Willie and Oscar has to do with Oscar giving Willie money - see my post on American Cigarettes. 

 
4. Willie’s friend stole Oscar’s girlfriend.

Willie became friends with Bram Stoker, while at Trinity College, and introduced him to the Wilde family. When Oscar was at school, his parents would later hire Stoker as Oscar’s tutor. Somehow, Stoker used that position to steal Oscar’s first love, Florence “Florrie” Balcombe, later Mrs. Stoker.

Oscar wouldn’t hold a grudge and became friends with Stoker, but he always had a place in his heart for Florrie and she would always refer to Oscar as “Poor O.”

5. Willie was the Wilde family favourite.

Oscar standing on left, Willie sitting far right.

Why do so many people love a villain? No matter how he mistreated their mother, Speranza always favoured Willie over Oscar. She always made excuses for Willie and even, at times, seemed jealous of Oscar’s success. In her letters, Speranza always blames Oscar, when the two brother’s aren’t getting along: “Why didn’t you come to your brother’s wedding?” “Why won’t you accept your brother’s apology?” And so on.

As the first-born, Willie inherited more than Oscar, when their father died. When their half-brother, Henry Wilson died, he left £8,000 to charity, £2,000 to Willie and only £100 to Oscar.

6. Willie published a bad review of Lady Windermere’s Fan.

Granted the review in the Daily Telegraph, where Willie worked, is only presumed to by written by Willie, it is a negative one and typical of their relationship. Also typical, their mother continued to pester Oscar to offer Willie praise for his writing. 

7. Willie gave Oscar bad advice.

During his trials, everyone, including the judge, expected and encouraged Wilde to flee to Paris. Oscar’s friends were ready to escort him there.

Willie (and his mother) wouldn’t hear of it and threatened to disown him, if he left.

8. Willie found self-righteous joy in Oscar’s troubles.

You would think that this would be the worst part of having Willie Wilde as a brother. As Oscar put it: Willie makes such a merit of giving me shelter,” when it was really their mother’s house and Oscar had been helping them financially for many years.

Following Oscar's arrest and first trial in April 1895, Willie claimed that he gave his brother shelter when he was unable to find rooms in London. Willie told anyone that would listen that Oscar "fell down on my threshold like a wounded stag.” As if standing by his brother, Willie wrote to Stoker:

Bram, my friend, poor Oscar was not as bad as people thought him. He was led astray by his Vanity - & conceit, & he was so 'got at' that he was weak enough to be guilty – of indiscretions and follies - that is all.... I believe this thing will help to purify him body & soul.

Yet, self-righteous joy and gloating was nothing compared to what Willie still had up his sleeve.

9. Willie blackmailed his brother.

While Oscar was going to court and staying with Willie on Oakley Street, Willie got a hold of some incriminating letters and used them to control Oscar for a while.

You can’t, however, get blood from a stone. Oscar didn’t have much money left to pay. He may have borrowed some to pay Willie from his friends, since Beebohm Tree and others knew about this situation. Willie eventually sold the letters to Travers Humphreys.

10. Willie sold Oscar’s things.

Oscar, as we all know, went to prison. Before that he had been living at his mother’s house, where his brother pretended to host him. He left a trunk of clothing behind, which Willie proceeded to pawn or sell - though his wife, Lily, saved Oscar’s shirts.

Oscar was so upset by the loss of his beloved fur coat that he could no longer refer to Willie and Lily by name. He wrote to Robert Ross on the subject:

Also, I would take it as a great favour if More [Adey] would write to the people who pawned or sold my fur coat since my imprisonment, and ask from me whether they would be kind enough to state where it was sold or pawned as I am anxious to trace it, and if possible get it back. I have had it for twelve years, it was all over America with me, it was at all my first nights, it knows me perfectly, and I really want it. The letter should be quite courteous, addressed first to the man: if he doesn't answer, to the woman. As it was the wife who pressed me to leave it in her charge, it might be mentioned that I am surprised and distressed, particularly as 1 paid out of my own pocket since my imprisonment all the expenses of her confinement, to the extent of £50 conveyed through Leverson. This might be stated as a reason for my being distressed.

By this point, Willie and Lily were no longer Oscar’s brother and sister-in-law. He refers to them only as “the people,” “the man,” “the woman,” “the wife,” but never by name.

One might try to argue that Willie and Oscar didn’t get along because Willie was an alcoholic, but their personalities clashed, since childhood. Oscar once clapped his hands when Willie’s night gown caught fire in their nursery, then sulked because their governess managed to put the fire out.

After Oscar went to prison, the two would never see or speak to each other again - except of course through third parties, like those Oscar sent to track down his belongings. Willie never even bothered to write to Oscar in prison and said that “For many reasons [Oscar] would not want to see me.” We don’t have to wonder why.

Follow me on Twitter @TinyApplePress and like the Facebook page for updates!

Van Helsing meets Hamlet

In spite of the fact that Bram Stoker's lasting fame is inextricably linked to Dracula, Stoker was most proud of and most dedicated to his work in the Lyceum Theatre for Sir Henry Irving. While Stoker's notes on Dracula, the original manuscript, and even his own personal diaries have been difficult or impossible to track down, Stoker published his memoirs or Personal Reminiscences on the subject of Henry Irving.

Stoker lived for his work with Irving and he had lots of reasons to. His pretty young wife longed to be an actress, but the career was too controversial for her and she may have lacked the talent. Stoker's father was a giant pushover and loathed the idea that his sons might follow in his footsteps, which usually ensures that they will; hence, sucking up to Irving might have just been in Stoker's nature. Also, the Lyceum in the 1890s was the hottest place for London Society to meet and mingle; Irving was the rockstar actor of his day and was the first English actor to be knighted for achievements in his field.

That being said, the Lyceum presented more Shakespeare than anything else. Irving played the Bard's starring roles, most notably, Hamlet. And all of this got me thinking that some of this Shakespeare must have seeped into Stoker's famous novel. Of course and luckily, I wasn't the first to think of this.

Kelly K.'s EN 122 Blog provides a light and entertaining analysis of the Bard's influence on Dracula.

Without Shakespeare, Van Helsing, a doctor and central character in Dracula, would not be named Van Helsing or hold the characteristics he does. This character’s name originates from the Danish name for Hamlet’s castle, Elsinore—Helsingor, or island of Helsing. Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula, selected to use “Helsing” to represent Van Helsing’s character due to the doctor’s strong and impenetrable personality that is much like the walls of the castle, Elsinore. Also, Van Helsing himself is like Elsinore where he keeps his emotions in, much like Claudius, King of Denmark and father/uncle to Hamlet, keeps him inside Elsinore’s walls. For instance, in chapter ten of Dracula, while he draws blood from Dr. Seward and observes it pour into Lucy Westenra, Van Helsing remains composed and undemonstrative. Without Hamlet, a creation of Shakespeare, Van Helsing would not bear his name or have the characteristics he embraces.

Since reading this, I haven't been able to shake the image of Van Helsing as a sulky prince.

Kelly Kendrick insists:

Shakespeare is the reason Dracula’s plot and characters exist. Without Shakespeare’sHamlet and Macbeth, Van Helsing would not bear his name nor carry the characteristics he does, Harker would never suspect Dracula to be anything other than human, he would never have been prisoner, he would have never contemplated death, and Harker wouldn’t have tried to save his poor Mina. Shakespeare should be mandatory to study simultaneously or prior to Dracula because they are so similar and based off of one another. Without Shakespeare, Dracula would not exist.

I don't know if I would go that far, but it's hard to say that Stoker wasn't influenced by Shakespeare. Everything in our lives can be said to influence us in some way and Shakespearean theatre is one of the things that Stoker was immersed in, while he was writing Dracula. He says so himself in Personal Reminiscences:

Henry VIII. was produced on the night of Tuesday, January 5, 1892, and ran at the Lyceum for two hundred and three perform- ances, ending on November 5. Its receipts were over sixfy-six thousand pounds.

And...

There is another view of Hamlet, too, which Mr. Irving seems to realise by a kind of instinct, but which requires to be more fully and intentionally worked out. . . . The great, deep, underlying idea of Hamlet is that of a mystic. ... In the high-strung nerves of the man; in the natural impulse of spiritual susceptibility ; in his concentrated action, spas- modic though it sometimes be, and in the divine delirium of his perfected passion there is the instinct of the mystic, which he has but to render a little plainer in order that the less susceptible senses of his audience may see and understand.

The Most Valuable Poem in the World?

This week a poem that Oscar Wilde wrote in college sold for almost €80,000. Aside from the bitter irony that, in the latter part of the 1890s, Wilde was so desperately poor that he sometimes could not afford to eat dinner at all and relied on free meals, I think it's excellent that his poetry is so valuable at this point in the history of homosexuality. I'm not sure, however, that the poem itself has anything to do with homosexuality, but it does present an early version of a theme that would reoccur in Wilde's writing on love.

The poem was called, "Heart's Yearnings" and was written in 1873.

Heart's Yearnings

Surely to me the world is all too drear,

To shape my sorrow to a tuneful strain,

It is enough for wearied ears to hear

The Passion-Music of a fevered brain,

Or low complainings of a heart's pain.

My saddened soul is out of tune with time,

Nor have I care to set the crooked straight,

Or win green laurels for some pleasant rhyme,

Only with tired eyes I sit and wait

The opening of the Future's Mystic Gate.

I am so tired of all the busy throng

That chirp and chatter in the noisy street,

That I would sit alone and sing no song

But listen for the coming of Love's feet.

Love is a pleasant messenger to greet.

O Love come close before the hateful day,

And tarry not until the night is dead,

O Love come quickly, for although one pray,

What has God ever given in thy stead

But dust and ashes for the head?

The message of this poem is simple; he hopes to fall in love before he dies. The idea of waiting for Love has always appeared in art. Yet, the line I like best is: "My saddened soul is out of tune with time." Wilde often felt out of tune with time, in love, art, and other matters. Here, I think that line means that he's sad about love before love has given him the chance to be sad about it. It makes me think of a line in a song by Bjork: "I miss you, though I haven't met you yet."

Still, the price this poem sold for works out to €220 per word and more than three times the price that a poem by Yeats sold for at the same auction, making it the most valuable poem in the world - not long after the U.K. legalized same-sex marriage. The context of this sale gives an entirely different resonance to the idea that Wilde's "saddened soul [was] out of tune with time," whether he was writing about homosexuality at the time or not.

Because I am a person interested in all of the minute details of these writers' lives, my remaining question about the poem is whether or not this was before he met Florence Balcombe. I've been searching for the dates of their relationship, but can't seem to pin it down. Let me know, if you know and I will update this post, when I have that information.

Follow me on Twitter @TinyApplePress and like the Facebook page for updates!

Vampires or Bust

With more writers opting to self-publish every year, I thought it might be encouraging to know that one of the greatest published his best work at great personal risk.

When publishing Dracula, in 1897, Bram Stoker borrowed a "substantial amount" of money from his good friend, Hall Caine. The novel wasn't much of a success, during the author's lifetime, but it helped his widow to live comfortably. It also left a lasting impression on literature and film.

To me, this serves as a reminder that, if you feel compelled to create art, you should create art and don't waste any time worrying about whether it was worth it.

Follow me on Twitter @TinyApplePress and like the Facebook page for updates!

Poor O

One of the most romanticized stories of Oscar Wilde's life is that of his relationship with Bram Stoker's wife, whose maiden name was Florence Anne Lemon Balcombe. The story goes like this: Wilde and the future Mrs. Stoker were sweethearts; Wilde's mother asked Stoker to tutor Wilde in his studies at Trinity college; Stoker stole Wilde's girlfriend; brought her to London; and ran the most successful theatre in town, while Wilde wrote plays and married someone else, then started having sex with men.

Some suppose that Wilde began writing plays to renew Mrs. Stoker's affection for him because he knew she fancied herself an actress Sadly, so many pieces of the puzzle are missing, but I don't like how contemporary scholars demonize poor Florrie. Just now, I read in Barbara Belford's book that:

At the time of Wilde's trials in 1895, Florence was vainly preoccupied; her portrait by Walter Frederick Oscborne, a well-known Dublin artist, was shown at the Royal Academy's summer exhibition. "One of the very best portraits of the year, if not really the best,"The Atheneaum noted, "is that of Mrs. Bram Stoker, sitting upon a white bearskin, with a warm grey background and mainly in half-tone." Draped in fur, Florence looks positively feral. Stoker accepted congratulations all around: for Irving, for his brother, for his wife. For Wilde there was only silence.

Some details that I think are important, when we judge Mrs. Stoker on her treatment of Wilde, are:

• She was only seventeen, when both Wilde and Stoker were courting her. Her family was dirt poor and she had no dowry. Wilde was still in college and Stoker was 28, with a steady job that paid good money. I've heard speculation that her parents probably pressured her to marry Stoker.
• The Stokers' marriage was passionless, platonic basically. The couple stopped having sex when their son was born. Mrs. Stoker had her own room, which her friends claim, was adorned with mementos of "Poor O." She called him "Poor O," acknowledging the impropriety of a married woman thinking of another man. 
• We know, through a letter that Wilde wrote to their mutual friend, Ellen Terry, that Wilde was very covert in communicating with Mrs. Stoker, not wanting to cause any unhappiness, embarrassment or scandal, as much as he was still in love with her.
• The last written evidence of communication between the two was in 1893.
• The night before his trials began, Wilde considered having his own portrait done.
• Their friends speculated that if Wilde had married Mrs. Stoker, instead of Constance Wilde, he might not have got into any of the trouble that he did, fooling around with men.

I'm certainly not going to speculate or comment on that last point, except to say that I think that it acknowles that Wilde and Mrs. Stoker would have been a love match. I accept the premise that Mrs. Stoker was a vain social climber, but so was Wilde and nothing is ever that simple. Remember, Wilde almost had his portrait painted the night before he went to trial! It is a picture worth a million pounds!

I'll just linger a moment longer to imagine there is any significant correlation between the timing of Mrs. Stoker's portrait and the trials of Oscar Wilde. In today's world, bad news means high profits for the cosmetics industry; lipstick sales go through the roof, when people are depressed. Lipstick is an easy way for one to feel better about oneself, especially if you are a girl. If Mrs. Stoker was sad, don't you think having a portrait done for the Royal Academy's summer exhibition would cheer her up? I think it would.

I think it's possible that Poor Florrie's poor heart was breaking for Poor O and she had no way of expressing it. The trials themselves were an example of what could happen when one engaged in a love that dare not speak its name.

Follow me on Twitter @TinyApplePress and like the Facebook page for updates!

Rational Dress

Thanks to Franny Moyle, I've come to see Oscar Wilde's wife as a far more complex character in the lives of writers in the 1890s. A writer in her own right, Constance Wilde wrote extensively on healthy fashions for women and published children's stories. She actively participated in the Rational Dress Society, attending meetings, exhibitions, as well as displaying her own creations (her wedding dress was on display to the public before she was married and what she wore to the theatre and parties was often the described in the press).

Many of the women involved in the artistic and writing communities of the 1890s were involved in the Rational Dress Society or the Artistic Dress Movements, including Bram Stoker's wife, Florence Stoker. Oscar Wilde promoted its ideals, during his tenure at the Woman's World. The Rational Dress Society was an organization founded in 1881 in London. It described its purpose thus:

The Rational Dress Society protests against the introduction of any fashion in dress that either deforms the figure, impedes the movements of the body, or in any way tends to injure the health. It protests against the wearing of tightly-fitting corsets; of high-heeled shoes; of heavily-weighted skirts, as rendering healthy exercise almost impossible; and of all tie down cloaks or other garments impeding on the movements of the arms. It protests against crinolines or crinolettes of any kind as ugly and deforming….[It] requires all to be dressed healthily, comfortably, and beautifully, to seek what conduces to birth, comfort and beauty in our dress as a duty to ourselves and each other.

Like the New Woman, these fashion forward women were often subject to ridicule. Commentary in the press about how Constance Wilde dressed reflected these criticisms.

Nonetheless, criticism made it hard to change the way most women dressed everyday and the Rational Dress Society's greatest triumphs were in the area of undergarments and athletic wear.

Follow me on Twitter @TinyApplePress and like the Facebook page for updates!