Trollheart

All of these words could refer to the count, and surely when Stoker began putting together his most famous character, Irving must have been on his mind as some sort of role model, his vision perhaps of the ideal man, a man even too good (or evil) to be merely human, a man, a figure, a creature above all others. His association with Irving, and his perceived lack of coverage of the actor’s talents, led Stoker to become a drama critic for the Dublin Evening Mail, through which offices he became known - though writing anonymously - as one of the great voices and authorities on the Dublin arts scene. His next major influence was the notorious writer, poet and all-round bad boy Oscar Wilde, with whom he developed a friendship, and the practice of Oscar’s mother, Lady Wilde, of drawing the curtains even during the day and seldom emerging till evening, as she tried to hide her fading beauty, surely influenced Stoker’s portrayal of the enigmatic count as a being who shunned the light and moved about only by darkness.

Oddly enough, it seems Stoker was almost as reclusive (or is seen to have been) a figure as his character, shunning the spotlight and releasing only the very barest details of his life - not that during his life anyone even wanted them, as he lived in the titanic shadow of Irving - making future attempts at writing his biography problematical at best. We can point to about three major influences/acquaintances that impacted upon his life, other than his mother. First is Walt Whitman, with whose poetry he was enthralled, and with whom, it is postulated, he first fell in love, even if he did not either recognise, admit or properly articulate his feelings for the man when he wrote to him. Second then is Irving, who would have so much control over his life that it’s really quite hard to see him as anything other than the model for Dracula himself, with Stoker playing the role of the hapless, impotent and powerless lawyer who gets trapped and slowly begins to die in his castle. Third then is Oscar Wilde. Other than these three, for a man who moved in literary and artistic circles, there aren’t any other major figures in his life to talk about.

He did marry, in fact the original sweetheart of his friend Oscar, but his marriage to Florence Bascombe, though it yielded one daughter, was always characterised as cold and passionless, the possibility being offered that his working for - some might say, and have done, slaving for Irving came between them, though if he was harbouring any sort of homosexual feelings (which, despite countless attempts in countless books on the subject has never been definitively proven) then his marriage may merely have been a typical Victorian show one, a duty, the thing to be done, or even a way to cover up his homosexuality.

Unable any longer to bear the cost of living in Ireland, with Abraham in deep debt and surely also wishing to put behind them tragic events such as the Famine and the cholera epidemic, Bram’s family divided - his father, mother and sisters going to live in Europe in 1872 and Bram, Thornley and his other brothers remaining behind. Bram’s literary talent, honed on the articles he had written for the paper, began to manifest itself more personally and directly as he wrote short stories, the first of which, “The Crystal Cup”, was published in London Society magazine the same year he was separated from his parents and sisters. It was a dark, gloomy, fatalistic story owing much to the work of Edgar Allan Poe, and utilising the kind of grim, forbidding imagery he would later harness in his masterpiece.

The following year he secured another job (in addition to working full time in the civil service and as drama critic for the Mail) with the Irish Echo, which allowed him to pour more of his literary imagination and even humour into the reports he wrote for the paper, and even a short story he had written, “Saved by a Ghost”, which saw publication on December 26 1873, continuing a tradition if not started by, then certainly popularised by Charles Dickens, of Christmas ghost stories. And it was during this time, while working for both papers and also writing his own fiction (and holding down a day job at Dublin Castle) that he met one of the few females who would figure in his life.

Actress Genevieve Ward was an American, perhaps the first he had ever met, and after reviewing her performance one night he made her acquaintance, later becoming fast friends with her. There are suggestions among some biographers of a romantic liaison with her, but there is no evidence to prove this, or indeed disprove it. She was, in any case, already married, to the dashing and surely jealous Count Constantine de Geurbel of Nicolaieff, aide-de-camp to the Russian Tsar, and who could also be seen as contributing, in Stoker’s mind (had he met him) to the character makeup of Count Dracula. Constantine’s own biographer wrote that his “personal power with both men and women was something inexplicably great. He was able to embarrass and lethargize the reasoning faculties, while intensifying the emotional.” Sound familiar?

Further evidence that de Guerbel may have provided some fodder for Stoker’s imagination comes when we read that he essentially jilted his bride, failing to be married for some time in a Russian church, the only way to legalise the marriage, and that when he was eventually ordered to by the Tsar, the bride’s father brought a gun to the ceremony and she herself wore black, her mother calling it not a marriage but a funeral, her daughter’s reputation and social standing seen to be already in tatters. But Genevieve reinvented herself, losing her singing voice to a bout of diphtheria and so concentrating on her acting, dropping her now-dead husband’s name and reverting to her own, and it was under these circumstances that she met Stoker. There was, however, no hint of anything other than friendship in their relationship, her letters to him headed “Dear Mr. Stoker.” His affections, if he had any for a woman, were reserved for one who was tacitly promised to another.

Again, the dearth of information about Stoker stymies any attempt to find out when, or how, or under what circumstances he courted Florence Balcombe, and whether this was with the approval of or under protest from Oscar Wilde, but by about summer 1878 they were engaged. However his marriage, due to take place a year from then, was hastily rushed forward when he received an offer (order really, command) from Henry Irving to join him in London, where he had bought the Lyceum Theatre which he wanted Stoker to run for him. It seems no discussion was had, no opinion elicited from his fiancee, and no argument (if there were any) would be accepted: he, and she, were going to London, and that was an end of it. Henry Irving had spoken, and Bram Stoker, with an almost Renfieldesque servility, rushed to his master’s side.

It’s an interesting aside that when Oscar requested the return of a gold crucifix he had gifted Florence when they had been together, it may have occurred to Bram that he could despatch the now-unwelcome presence of his now-wife’s former suitor by banishing him with the holy artifact, or, to quote the article directly: There were ample reasons for Stoker to think Oscar was unsavory, or somehow unclean. If you threw a crucifix at him, perhaps he would just go away. In the event he did not, exactly: Wilde moved to London, seeming to be following Stoker, but it wasn’t so. He had merely outgrown, in his own estimation, the confines of parochial (by comparison) Dublin and wished to move to a larger, more appreciative stage. Of course, while he for a time accomplished this, becoming the toast of London society, it was England which would be his ruin, as history shows us all too plainly.

But we’re concerned here not with Oscar Wilde but Bram Stoker, and less than a year after moving to London - and with no honeymoon, for Irving demanded all of his time, like the very vampire it is postulated he would be created into, sucking all of the energy and attention out of his young protege as he could - he and Florence had a son, their only child. To nobody’s surprise (and possibly above Florence’s objections, though this isn’t recorded) he was named Irving Noel Stoker, though he dropped the first part of his name as soon as he could, and was ever after known as Noel Stoker.

Somehow, among all this slavedriven workload, Stoker managed to put together a collection of dark fairy tales called Under the Sunset, in 1881, in which a passage seems to be almost reproduced later at the beginning of his classic novel, for which he would begin taking notes a decade later.

Pass not the Portal of the Sunset Land!
Pause where the Angels at their vigil stand.
Be warned! And press not though the gates lie wide,
But rest securely on the hither side.
Though odorous gardens and cool ways invite,
Beyond are the darkest valleys of the night.
Rest! Rest contented.—Pause whilst undefiled,
Nor seek the horrors of the desert wild.

The next year, as Irving began to talk of plans for an American tour, Oscar Wilde would achieve something Stoker could only at that point dream of: he met Walt Whitman in person, and the two got on very well. A year later Stoker would finally meet his idol. It was a great joy for both men, and Whitman made him promise to come visit him at his home, as he originally met them at the residence of another acquaintance. In 1883 he did so, and enjoyed the great poet’s company, making a fine impression on the man himself, as they talked of such subjects as the tragic killing of Abraham Lincoln.

Bram Stoker began taking notes for his new novel in 1890, when he visited the southern Yorkshire town of Whitby, which would become the point in the book where the old world and the new met, where Dracula would finally set foot (or, as it happened, paw) on English soil. He researched diligently for the next seven years, and this was a man who knew what research meant! From reading geographic travelogues about Romania, noting descriptions of buildings and people, to confirming the exact times of the arrival and departure of trains, so as to be accurate. Previous treatments of the vampire myth, as we have seen, mostly if not not all based on Polidori’s The Vampyre, had set the story in Styria, now in modern Slovenia (had this anything to do with the word hysteria? I don’t know, but you’d wonder), as a strange, unfamiliar, dark and largely backward country where superstition held sway and where such things as vampires could be seen to exist, at least for literary purposes. Stoker more or less followed this rule.

He chose Romania though as his setting, settling on Transylvania - literally, the land beyond the forest - as the location for the count’s castle, and where the action for the first part of the book would take place. He never personally visited the country, but gained all the information he could through books, as I said, and anyway, so little would have been known of such places by mostly insular Britons that it really is unlikely to have mattered how accurate or realistic his description was. In addition to that, it was after all fiction, and Gothic horror fiction at that. He wasn’t trying to write a detailed travelogue on the country.

The novel, originally to be called The Un-Dead, but its title changed at the last moment, hit the shelves in 1897, and was a hit, however it did not establish him as the respected author he had hoped it would. His “friend” (read, master) Henry Irving is said to have dismissed it in one disdainful word: “dreadful”. Then again, Irving was a vain, egotistical, mean bastard who probably hated anyone else to get attention or notice, or indeed credit, much less Stoker, whom he would have seen as little more than a servant, so he probably never even read the thing. Reaction to the novel though was mixed, and Stoker came in for a lot of criticism, many people not taking it seriously, dismissing it as Irving had done, or tearing it to pieces in an almost symbolic imitation of the actions of the count himself on his victims.

Stoker continued to write, but none of his novels after his opus gained much attention either, and he died, not penniless but certainly not celebrated, in 1912 at the age of sixty-five. A man who had been born into death and tragedy, he ended his life the same way, passing four days after what was the biggest maritime disaster and loss of life when the RMS Titanic sank on its maiden voyage. None of the obituaries mentioned his seminal work; in fact, most referred to him only in the same breath as Irving, allowing the dread master of his fate to retain his control over him even in death (he had died a few years previously) and drag him down into the abyss after him.

Of course, like many writers, his genius was only acknowledged long after his death, and now he is celebrated the world over as very much the father of not only the world’s most famous and enduring vampire, but of almost all vampire fiction that followed. It is universally agreed that he wrote one of the nineteenth century’s greatest works of literature, on very much a part with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and authors such as Edgar Allen Poe.

In death, it seems, Stoker achieved what he never did in life, which was to establish himself as his own man, speak with his own voice, not as the mouthpiece or puppet of another, more controlling one, and though his name is still linked with Henry Irving, it is today the man who created Dracula whom we remember most. The weakling boy from Dublin, had come back to life via the Carpathian Mountains, and looms large over a multi-billion dollar industry that might never have been born had it not been for him.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018