WEBVTT - Bram Stoker 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.320 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.400 of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:16.680 I'm Holly Fry, and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So Tracy. 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:20.200 The story that begins with Jonathan Harker's travels to Transylvania 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:23.000 on a business trip to complete a real estate deal 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:26.200 is one almost everybody knows. If I tell you that phrase, 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:31.360 you would say, I would say Dracula, right, because Dracula 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:33.960 is iconic. And we have talked about Dracula on several 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:36.400 episodes of this podcast, when we talked about the lives 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:40.000 of Christopher Lee and f. W. Murnow and Bella Lugosi 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:43.839 and Dwight Fry, And it seems like we must have 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:47.839 talked about the life of Bram Stoker before. Yeah, we 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:50.239 have not. No, we had a whole conversation where you 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:52.120 were like, I can't believe we haven't done this, and 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:56.480 I was like, but we did, though, No, it has 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:58.240 come up. I feel like what's come up more than 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:01.840 Bram Stoker himself is his estate and his widow not 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:07.440 giving people permission to adapt his work. But really we 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:11.440 have not talked about him at all. Uh It this 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:14.440 is a case where once I started getting into the research. 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:17.080 After you and I had that discussion, I knew we 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:19.240 had not talked about it at all, because there's part 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:23.119 of his story I would have remembered and have been 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:25.440 texting all of my friends about for the last several 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:29.520 days leading up to this recording. So today we are 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:33.800 going to talk about Bram Stoker. Abraham Stoker was born 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:38.720 on November eight eight His parents lived in the Clontarf 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:42.959 suburb of Dublin, Ireland. His father was also named Abraham Stoker. 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:47.360 His mother was Charlotte Matilda Blake Thornley Stoker, and this 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:50.400 was a large family. Braham had two siblings when he 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:53.400 was born, and the Stokers had another four more children 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.440 after him. And as a child, Bram, who was still 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:59.480 going by Abraham at that age but to separate from 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:01.600 his dad go ahead and go to his adopted name 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:05.400 of Brann, was not healthy. He was confined to his 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:08.440 bed or wherever an adult would carry him for the 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:11.800 first seven years of his life. And we don't actually 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:14.160 know what the nature of this illness was, and there 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:17.040 have been all kinds of theories, from it possibly having 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:20.680 been some sort of a fever, to a psychological element 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:23.360 being part of it, possibly a trauma of some kind, 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:27.680 but this is absolutely all speculation. We do not know 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:30.720 what was up here. Most biographers make the case that 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:34.840 this early phase of Stoker's life definitely influenced everything that 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:38.880 came afterward. Braham's mother told him about the cholera epidemic 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:43.320 that she had lived through, and specifically people being buried alive. 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:47.760 His father would tell him family stories, including military battles, 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:52.040 and also described plays that he had seen. All of 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:56.160 this seated Stoker's imagination, and he had a lot of 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:59.320 time alone with his thoughts since he couldn't really get 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:02.680 up and go with his siblings and his peers. But 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:06.560 despite this early start in this mystery ailment, Stoker made 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:10.680 a full recovery. Biographer Barbara Belford, who was one of 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:14.320 several biographers that wrote about him, mentions how very odd 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:17.440 it is that Stoker never gave any detail of his 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:21.720 illness in his writing about himself. This was not a 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:25.280 family that was ignorant of medical matters. His uncle, William 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:28.720 Stoker was the family doctor. He also had three brothers 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:32.320 who became doctors. But the truth of those early years 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:35.720 seems to have been obscured and lost to time. Although 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:39.040 a lot of scholars of Stoker's work have scoured his 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:41.760 writing for clues like any time he mentions a child 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:43.600 being ill, or they like is this a reference to 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:47.520 his youth? But details regarding the end of his illness 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:51.560 are as murky as the illnesses itself. He would later write, quote, 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:54.560 this early weakness passed away, and I grew into a 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:57.560 strong boy in time, in large to the biggest member 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:01.400 of my family. In eighteen sixty four, when Stoker was seventeen, 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:04.480 he enrolled at Trinity College at the University of Dublin, 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:07.480 And while he may have started life in pretty poor 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:10.240 health as a college student, he was actually really athletic. 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:14.680 He was an accomplished gymnast and a rugby player. He 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:19.880 also participated in endurance racewalking. He won prizes in five 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:23.599 and seven mile walks. He also cut a pretty striking figure. 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:25.839 He was six ft two with red hair, and he 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:30.000 was popular. Invited to join both the Historical Society and 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:33.440 the Philosophical Society, and he was elected to positions of 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:37.320 responsibility in each of them. His time at Trinity overlapped 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:40.360 with that of Oscar Wilde, who was younger than Stoker. 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.000 The two of them knew each other, and Bram had 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:47.599 actually nominated Wild for membership of the Philosophical Society. Yeah, 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:51.080 that's an interesting overlap. It will come up again in 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:54.800 just a bit. So here's the thing. Stoker's performance in 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:58.279 school did not really hint at his future legacy. While 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:02.360 he excelled at sports, was kind of an average student academically, 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:06.640 but he was writing essays and papers about things that 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:10.920 sparked his interest in his societal participations, including one's titled 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:17.360 Sensationalism in Fiction and Society and the Necessity for Political Honesty. 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:20.680 In eighteen seventy, he graduated from Trinity. He would later 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:24.159 say he graduated with honors in mathematics. This is untrue. 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:27.000 Trinity College actually has a biography of him, and they're like, 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:31.440 we don't know where he got this. If you're wondering 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:34.120 about it taking six years for him to earn a 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:37.039 bachelor's degree, that's because he was also working for all 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:40.440 but the first two years of that schooling. Stoker took 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:43.240 a civil service job at Dublin Castle thanks to an 0:05:43.240 --> 0:05:46.000 assist from his father, who had also worked there as 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:49.160 a civil servant until his retirement in eighteen sixty five. 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:52.719 So he was working six and a half days a 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:56.839 week while also taking classes. So at that point six 0:05:56.920 --> 0:05:59.760 years is past to me. Yes, me as well. And 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:01.720 it's one of those things where it's almost like this 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:04.159 sets the stage for his whole life of just being 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:08.080 constantly working on a lot of things and making time 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:11.160 for more things than anyone humans should fit in a day. 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:13.919 But after he finished school, he continued in his civil 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:17.440 service position, although he also continued to be interested in literature. 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:22.280 In his last years of school, Stoker became somewhat obsessed 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:25.760 with Walt Whitman, and that deep interest in the man 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:29.760 and his work continued long after graduation from Trinity. In 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:34.400 February seventy two, Stoker wrote Whitman a two thousand word 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:37.440 letter in which he said, among other things, quote, you 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:40.360 have shaken off the shackles and your wings are free. 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:43.680 I have the shackles on my shoulder still, but I 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:48.480 have no wings. Stoker's letter continues on to describe himself 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:52.000 and detail including the sorts of things that a person 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:56.880 today might normally share, maybe with a therapist, including how 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:58.960 he chose to interact with people, as well as the 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:00.920 sort of things he might tell pen pal, and then 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:03.560 it concluded with quote, now I have told you all 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:07.560 I know about myself. So couldn't actually mail this letter 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:10.559 to Whitman, though instead he left it in his desk 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:13.960 for the next four years, intending to make a clean 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:18.600 copy to send. This is a level of procrastination I 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:23.680 feel like I can experience in my life. I think 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:26.760 we all can. There's also the possibility, and again this 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:30.120 is a matter of speculation that some people have theorized 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:33.160 that he recognized how sort of raw and familiar this 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:36.200 letter was, and like, while that may have been his 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:40.120 truest feelings, he was also a little trepidacious about actually 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:43.680 sharing it, Like maybe I shouldn't send this to someone. 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:46.480 Maybe I don't even want to acknowledge that I just 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:49.200 wrote all of these things to my literary hero, because 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:54.920 that's weird. We'll talk more about this whole thing on Friday. 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:58.480 But after a gathering at which Whitman's work was criticized 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:01.240 and rebutted in eighteen seven six, and we should point 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:04.720 out that, you know, Whitman was controversial in his time. 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:07.120 There were poems, for example, that were part of Leaves 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:10.720 of Grass that were left out of some publications of 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:12.840 that work, particularly in Britain. There was a lot of 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:16.160 discussion about whether his work was appropriate in some cases, 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:20.400 but at that gathering Stoker provided the defense position of 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:23.880 the poet, And afterwards he wrote another letter to Walt Whitman, 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:27.560 similarly familiar and kind of intimate. He talked about having 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:29.840 defended him because he thinks he is such a great man. 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:33.480 And this time he actually mailed it, as well as 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:36.120 that one that had sat in his destroyer all of 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:40.520 the intervening time. And Whitman got these letters and replied 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:42.440 that he hoped that the two of them would one 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:46.480 day meet, and he commented on the unconventional, manly and 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:49.520 affectionate way in which Stoker had addressed him. Those are 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:53.680 all adjectives that I am quoting from Whitman regarding Bram 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:56.760 Stoker's writing. If if you want to know more about 0:08:56.760 --> 0:08:59.079 Walt Whitman and his writing, we have a previous episode 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:01.200 on him that I feel has been a Saturday classic, 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:04.760 not that long ago, but it has been long ago 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:07.359 enough ago since we recorded it that I have no recollection. 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:10.640 If it mentions Bram Stoker in any way, I don't 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:15.520 think so, because I think I would have remembered. Uh 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:20.439 so anyway, Whitman had been particularly delighted in all this 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:24.880 by a passage in which Stoker called him the quote father, brother, 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:28.520 and wife to his soul. Whitman later told a friend 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:31.040 that he felt that Stoker had actually been writing to 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:33.920 himself and kind of working through his own thoughts, and 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:36.640 that he felt compelled to respond to the young man. 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:40.960 Although Stoker had hoped that Whitman might one day travel 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:43.840 to Ireland and they could meet, Whitman's health at the 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:46.960 time kept that from ever happening. Yeah, he was not 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.640 able to travel, um, but don't give up on that thought. 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:54.280 This writing, these letters to Walt Whitman are the only 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:57.800 instances of writing from Stoker's youth where he speaks so 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:02.120 openly about himself and his inner world. He tends to 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:05.760 kind of keep his private thoughts private for most of 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:08.000 the rest of his writing, so they have become a 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:11.600 really important part of his history. In eighteen seventy six, 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:16.080 Stoker was promoted into the newly created position of Inspector 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:19.240 of Courts of Petty Sessions, and this money had to 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:23.120 travel to various municipalities and audit their small claims courts. 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:25.880 Three years into the job, he published a book on 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:29.720 this subject called The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:32.600 in Ireland. Bless him. This sounds dull as dirt. I 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:34.920 mean it's literally like going to a court and hearing 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:39.120 people talk about things. Uh. In one biography they mentioned 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:42.080 like him him sitting in on hearings about things like 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:47.200 dog licenses. Uh, you know, neighbors complaining against one another. 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:50.800 But meanwhile, while working in his civil service job by 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:54.920 day and probably finding it a little less than intellectually stimulating, 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:58.240 Stoker started a side hustle in the evenings as a 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:02.480 writer on more interesting topic. He first wrote theater reviews. 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:04.400 He did not get paid for these, but he did 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:07.960 create a significant change at the Dublin Evening Mail in 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:11.480 working on them. Up to that point, theater reviews normally 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:14.120 published two days after the show that was being reviewed, 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:15.960 so if you went to a show on Friday night, 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:19.480 the review of it would appear Sunday. But Stoker, who 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:21.680 again was a very busy bee and would pack a 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:24.959 lot of work into any day, instigated a shift so 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:27.400 that next day reviews would run at the paper. So 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:30.120 if you saw that Friday show, the review would run 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:33.680 on the Saturday morning and learning the discipline of writing 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:36.160 and doing this on a deadline enabled him to turn 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:39.280 his pen to more creative efforts, and he started writing 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:42.360 short stories as well. In eighteen seventy two, he had 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:44.720 actually already published the first of his short stories, that 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:47.520 was one called The Crystal Cup. But in the late 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:50.880 eighteen seventies he also started editing a fiction magazine. In 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:55.120 eighteen seventy five, he published a novella over several installments 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:58.680 in the periodical The Shamrock. That story is called The 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:02.480 Primrose Path was published under the name A Stoker Esquire 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:06.440 that unfolds over ten chapters. This is a morality tale 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.079 about the dangers of alcohol, and it tells the story 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:12.920 of a carpenter from Dublin who moves to London and 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:17.520 becomes an alcoholic, which ultimately leads to misery, so much misery. 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:22.200 It's a very dark, dark story in many ways. In 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.920 late eighteen seventy six, bram Stoker wrote a theater review 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:27.920 that changed the course of his life. And we're going 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:30.040 to talk about that. After we first paused for a 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:39.680 sponsor break, as we said before the break. In eighteen 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:43.440 seventy six, bram Stoker wrote a review this review was 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:46.960 of Henry Irving's performance as Hamlet, and it was glowing. 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:50.679 Bram was already something of a Henry Irving fan. He 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:53.160 had seen the famous actor on stage for the first 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:55.560 time in eighteen sixty seven, when he had attended a 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:58.920 performance of The Rivals in Dublin, and he had, when 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:01.800 he saw that first performance, been thinking about a career 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:05.960 in acting himself, and Irving asked Stoker out to dinner 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:08.080 as a thank you for this. This was a start 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:11.320 of a long and very close friendship. Henry Irving became 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:14.480 a pivotal figure in Bram Stoker's life, so it's worth 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:17.800 giving his biography a little attention, just for context. So 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:21.760 Irving was born John Henry broad Rib in Somerset, England, 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:25.840 on February and when he was six his parents moved 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:27.920 to Bristol, where his father had found a new job, 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:30.400 but they left John Henry with an aunt and uncle 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:33.600 in Cornwall rather than moving him to a city. He 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:35.960 did rejoin his parents a few years later in London 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:38.560 at the age of ten. He started work as a 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:41.120 clerk as a young man, but really always wanted a 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:45.400 life in the theater, so with financial assistance from a relative, 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:48.880 he started purchasing costumes and wigs, and then he bought 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:51.559 a role for himself in a local production of Romeo 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:55.880 and Juliet. He appeared in that as Henry Irving. From 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:58.520 there he started working with stock companies. This a bit 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:02.440 performer and was an hund of shows touring Great Britain. Yeah, 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:04.640 I read one statistics that said something like over the 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:07.560 course of three years he was in four hundred different roles, 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:11.120 so he was doing a lot of very small bit 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:16.200 players kind of acting. Irving really started gating recognition in 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:19.200 the mid eighteen sixties, and in eighteen seventy one he 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:21.960 became very famous for his appearance in The Bells at 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:25.440 the Lyceum Theater. He appeared at the Lyceum as the 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:27.760 star of the company for the next several years, and 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:30.280 it was in late eighteen seventy six that he starred 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:33.360 in Hamlet, which was of course reviewed by Bram Stoker 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:36.720 for the Dublin Evening Mail, and after reading that review 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:39.440 in the morning, Irving wanted to have dinner with Stoker 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:43.200 that very evening. The two men wrote letters to one 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:46.400 another for several years, and in eighteen seventies seven, Irving 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:50.520 made a move that really changed Stoker's life. He purchased 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:53.440 the Lyceum Theater in London and asked Stoker to be 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:57.040 its manager. Irving would work as the director of the 0:14:57.040 --> 0:14:59.920 productions and of course also star in them, and then 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:03.360 Stoker would handle the business, from tickets to press releases 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:06.920 and managing the staff. This was a really big ask. 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:10.960 Henry Irving was the most famous actor in late nineteenth 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:13.800 century England, and he was also known to be intense 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:18.920 and demanding and uncompromising. And Bram Stoker, who adored Irving, 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:21.200 didn't think twice about it. He bid a jew to 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:24.200 Ireland and his civil service job to start a new 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:28.320 as Henry Irving's business manager, essentially in eighteen seventy eight, 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:31.960 and this job was not a hobby job, so the 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:34.880 two of them could hang out. The Lyceum was large, 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:38.080 with a seating capacity of two thousand, and it was 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:41.440 a social hub for London society in addition to all 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:46.080 the regular business of his position, entertaining the illustrious patrons 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:50.080 of the theater after shows with luxurious dinners that also 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:53.560 fell under Stoker's job description. This is a gigantic job 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:57.680 for one person. Yes, it is in doing this though 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:02.960 he met numerous luminaries, including Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:06.720 and Prime Minister Gladstone. This is so much work, and 0:16:06.760 --> 0:16:10.800 despite these long hours demanded of this job, Stoker still 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:13.480 found time to write, and this was on top of 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:16.680 the fact that he was writing several dozen letters a 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:20.120 day on behalf of Henry Irving, so handling both his 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:25.240 business correspondents and his personal correspondents and things like fan mail. Somehow, 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:28.880 while doing all of this, Stoker also got married in 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:33.720 eighteen seventy eight to Florence Malcolm. Florence was eleven years 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:37.680 younger than he was and was pretty outgoing, whereas he 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:41.160 was more shy and reserved. Her claim to historical fame 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:45.120 is being the exquisitely pretty girl that Oscar Wilde fell 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:49.000 in love with, and she didn't apparently tell wild that 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:51.840 she had married his friend from Trinity. While he was 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:55.800 off traveling. Oscar Wilde wrote her a letter that he 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:58.320 wished to have a gold cross back that he had 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:01.040 given to her because it represents the sweetest time of 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:03.640 his youth. She told him that he could come to 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:05.600 their home and get it, but he thought that would 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:08.600 be inappropriate and asked that they meet at her parents 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:12.800 home instead, and Florence, for her part, also wanted something back. 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:15.320 She wanted all of the letters that she had sent 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:18.760 Oscar Wilde when they were corresponding and courting. It is 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.800 unclear if these things were ever exchanged and given back 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:26.520 to each other. Uh This whole interaction, and this sort 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:31.000 of triangle of relationships is often summarized as Florence having 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:34.240 the choice to marry either Bram Stoker or Oscar Wilde. 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:36.720 But while Oscar Wilde, in his writing to her, does 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:40.639 seem to have really been hurt by Florence marrying his friend, 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:43.320 there's no evidence that he was ever suggesting that he 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:45.399 should be her husband or that they should get married, 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.600 and wild An Stoker did remain friends despite this whole thing. 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:53.480 Bram and Florence had one child, a son named Noel. 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:56.639 That was the first year after they were married, maybe 0:17:56.680 --> 0:17:59.520 in response to finding himself a father. In eighty one, 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:03.200 Stoker published a book of children's stories called Under the Sunset. 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:06.040 There didn't seem to be a lot of discord in 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:08.800 the Stoker marriage, but there also didn't seem to be 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:12.760 that much closeness or devotion between them either. No, they 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:16.399 did a lot of stuff separately. Um Stoker was a 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:20.320 man who valued efficiency and organization, and he was absolutely 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:24.600 excellent at managing Irving's every need at the theater, and 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:27.360 he seemed to put his job and Irving ahead of 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:31.840 everything else in his life, including his own family. For example, 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:35.679 the newlywed Stoker's even skipped a honeymoon instead, Bram and 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:39.600 Florence had traveled to Birmingham so Bram could work. Stoker 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:42.520 had not even told his boss that he was getting married. 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:46.240 In eighteen eighty three, the Lyceum Theater mounted a tour 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:50.719 in North America. Stoker managed all of the logistics, so 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:53.960 the first of many such tours, and Stoker collected his 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:57.919 experiences into a travelog called A Glimpse of America that 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:01.320 came out in eighteen eighties six. On these travels to 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:05.119 the U S, Stoker met two presidents, McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt, 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:09.520 and more importantly, he was finally able to meet Walt Whitman. 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:12.359 And at this point these two writers had been trading 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:15.280 letters for years, so there was a pretty easy friendship 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:18.520 to their meeting. Although descriptions kind of make it sound 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:21.680 like Stoker was initially a little nervous there was one 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:25.919 blemish to mar this beautiful occasion, though Henry Irving had 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:28.520 insisted on going to meet Walt Whitman as well, so 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:31.520 Stoker felt a little bit cheated of the intimate conversation 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:34.760 that he had dreamed of having with his idol. Woman 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:38.240 noted also that Stoker had switched from going by Abraham 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:41.560 Stoker to Bram Stoker, and he did not particularly like 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:43.639 that shift in name. He just didn't think it was 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:47.320 very dignified. But overall it was a really, really good meeting, 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:50.399 and Stoker declared Walt Whitman to be quote, a man 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:55.560 amongst men. During the eighteen nineties, Stoker was still publishing novels, 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:59.520 including The Waters Moo and that feature star crossed lovers 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:02.880 as part of the story. There's also The Shoulder of Shasta, 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:06.639 which is a romance set in northern California. Even as 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:09.080 these books were being published, he was also working on 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:13.359 what would become his masterpiece, Dracula. While Bram Stoker was 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:17.359 normally a very fast writer, Dracula took him far longer 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:20.160 than his previous novels. He wrote it over the course 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:23.160 of seven years, and perhaps even longer, but that's how 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:25.280 long we know he was working on it while he 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:28.600 was touring with Irving and working on other writing projects. 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:31.240 We'll talk a little more about some of the research 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:34.760 that went into the most famous of Stoker's books after 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:36.480 we first take a break for a word from the 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:46.640 sponsors that keep stuff UMIs in history class going. If 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:49.080 you look at the notes that Stoker compiled as he 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:52.720 was assembling his Vampiric Tail, it becomes really apparent that 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:56.720 he was, as we mentioned earlier, meticulous. He had carefully 0:20:56.760 --> 0:21:00.840 plotted out Jonathan Harker's journey to Transylvania by train, using 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:04.919 actual train schedules and only using connections that he believed 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:07.960 would have actually worked, and he created a table of 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:10.280 all of the correspondents that would appear in the book 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:12.679 to ensure that the dates that they posted in the 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:15.920 dates that they would arrive in the recipient's hands was realistic. 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:19.119 It also seems as though all of his work running 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:21.520 at theater and tours kind of informed the way he 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:25.680 constructed narrative. He also was a writer who really believed 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:29.520 in research, and his work researching what would become the 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:33.560 novel Dracula is really deeply associated with the town of Whitby, England, 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:36.639 on the country's east coast. He is said to have 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:39.960 visited a library in Whitby to look at a specific 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:44.320 selection of the Special Collections title by William Wilkinson, which 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:48.080 is an account of the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:52.400 with various political observations relating to them. It is from 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:54.399 this book that he is said to have learned of 0:21:54.440 --> 0:21:58.640 the name Dracula in relation to lad Tepeesh. Prior to this, 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:03.200 Stoker was planning to name his villainous character Count vomp Here. 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:05.919 This was a rare book. It's an odd thing for 0:22:06.000 --> 0:22:08.359 Stoker to have just known about. But a friend he 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:12.800 knew from his theater circle, Arminius van Berry, had told 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:15.639 him about the story of the locking a count and 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:20.280 the book that he could find it in. Yeah, piece 0:22:20.320 --> 0:22:23.480 of knowledge. It's a very strange thing, right. I can 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:27.520 only imagine as a librarian having someone walk in and 0:22:27.560 --> 0:22:29.520 be like, hey, you know that rare book that you 0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:31.280 don't even tell people you have. I would like to 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:35.800 see it please. I mean, it's literally that strange um. 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:40.160 Stoker then visited the Whippy Museum to work on that 0:22:40.240 --> 0:22:43.160 route that we mentioned a moment ago for Harker to take, 0:22:43.200 --> 0:22:47.640 including making notes about latitude and longitude, and next Stoker 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:50.639 consulted with the Royal Coast Guard at the nearby harbor 0:22:51.000 --> 0:22:53.760 and discussed the topic that would figure prominently in the 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:57.800 story of Dracula. In five, the ship Dmitri had left 0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:00.240 the port of Narva in Estonia and had on the 0:23:00.280 --> 0:23:03.600 ground near Whitby. According to the locals, only a few 0:23:03.640 --> 0:23:06.040