Dracula Bram Stoker

Author

As the acting manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London, Bram Stoker was a recognisable figure: he would greet evening guests, and served as assistant to the stage actor Henry Irving. In a letter to Walt Whitman, Stoker described his own temperament as "secretive to the world", but he nonetheless led a relatively public life.[1] Stoker supplemented his income from the theatre by writing romance and sensation novels,[2][3][a] and had published 18 books by his death in 1912.[5] Dracula was Stoker's seventh published book, following The Shoulder of Shasta (1895) and preceding Miss Betty (1898).[6][b] Hall Caine, a close friend of Stoker's, wrote an obituary for him in The Daily Telegraph, saying that—besides his biography on Irving—Stoker wrote only "to sell" and "had no higher aims".[8]

Influences

Many figures have been suggested as inspirations for Count Dracula, but there is no consensus. In his 1962 biography of Stoker, Harry Ludlam suggested that Ármin Vámbéry, a professor at the University of Budapest, supplied Stoker with information about Vlad Drăculea, commonly known as Vlad the Impaler.[9] Professors Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu popularised the idea in their 1972 book, In Search of Dracula.[10] Benjamin H. LeBlanc writes that there is a reference within the text to Vámbéry, an "Arminius, of Buda-Pesh University", who is familiar with the historical Vlad III and is a friend of Abraham Van Helsing,[11] but an investigation by McNally and Florescu found nothing about "Vlad, Dracula, or vampires" within Vámbéry's published papers,[12] nor in Stoker's notes about his meeting with Vámbéry.[11] Academic and Dracula scholar Elizabeth Miller calls the link to Vlad III "tenuous", indicating that Stoker incorporated a large amount of "insignificant detail" from his research, and rhetorically asking why he would omit Vlad III's infamous cruelty.[13][c]

Raymond McNally's Dracula Was A Woman (1983) suggests another historical figure as an inspiration: Elizabeth Báthory.[16] McNally argues that the imagery of Dracula has analogues in Báthory's described crimes, such as the use of a cage resembling an iron maiden.[17] Gothic critic and lecturer Marie Mulvey-Roberts writes that vampires were traditionally depicted as "mouldering revenants, who dragged themselves around graveyards", but—like Báthory—Dracula uses blood to restore his youth.[18] Recent scholarship has questioned whether Báthory's crimes were exaggerated by her political opponents,[19] with others noting that very little is concretely known about her life.[20] A book that Stoker used for research, The Book of Were-Wolves, does have some information on Báthory, but Miller writes that he never took notes on anything from the short section devoted to her.[21] In a facsimile edition of Bram Stoker's original notes for the book, Miller and her co-author Robert Eighteen-Bisang say in a footnote that there is no evidence she inspired Stoker.[22] In 2000, Miller's book-length study, Dracula: Sense and Nonsense, was said by academic Noel Chevalier to correct "not only leading Dracula scholars, but non-specialists and popular film and television documentaries".[23][d]

Aside from the historical, Count Dracula also has literary progenitors. Academic Elizabeth Signorotti argues that Dracula is a response to the lesbian vampire of Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla (1872), "correcting" its emphasis on female desire.[25] Bram Stoker's great-nephew, broadcaster Daniel Farson, wrote a biography of the author; in it, he doubts that Stoker was aware of the lesbian elements of Carmilla, but nonetheless notes that it influenced him profoundly.[26][e] Farson writes that an inscription upon a tomb in Dracula is a direct allusion to Carmilla.[28] Scholar Alison Milbank observes that as Dracula can transform into a dog, Carmilla can become a cat.[29] According to author Patrick McGrath, "traces of Carmilla" can be found in the three female vampires residing in Dracula's castle.[30] A short story written by Stoker and published after his death, "Dracula's Guest", has been seen as evidence of Carmilla's influence.[31] According to Milbank, the story was a deleted first chapter from early in the original manuscript, and replicates Carmilla's setting of Styria instead of Transylvania.[32]

Irish folklore has been suggested as a possible influence on Stoker. Bob Curran, a lecturer in Celtic History and Folklore at the University of Ulster, Coleraine, suggests that Stoker may have drawn some inspiration for Dracula from an Irish vampire, Abhartach.[33][34]