Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry, and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So Tracy.
Speaker 1: The story that begins with Jonathan Harker's travels to Transylvania
Speaker 1: on a business trip to complete a real estate deal
Speaker 1: is one almost everybody knows. If I tell you that phrase,
Speaker 1: you would say, I would say Dracula, right, because Dracula
Speaker 1: is iconic. And we have talked about Dracula on several
Speaker 1: episodes of this podcast, when we talked about the lives
Speaker 1: of Christopher Lee and f. W. Murnow and Bella Lugosi
Speaker 1: and Dwight Fry, And it seems like we must have
Speaker 1: talked about the life of Bram Stoker before. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: have not. No, we had a whole conversation where you
Speaker 1: were like, I can't believe we haven't done this, and
Speaker 1: I was like, but we did, though, No, it has
Speaker 1: come up. I feel like what's come up more than
Speaker 1: Bram Stoker himself is his estate and his widow not
Speaker 1: giving people permission to adapt his work. But really we
Speaker 1: have not talked about him at all. Uh It this
Speaker 1: is a case where once I started getting into the research.
Speaker 1: After you and I had that discussion, I knew we
Speaker 1: had not talked about it at all, because there's part
Speaker 1: of his story I would have remembered and have been
Speaker 1: texting all of my friends about for the last several
Speaker 1: days leading up to this recording. So today we are
Speaker 1: going to talk about Bram Stoker. Abraham Stoker was born
Speaker 1: on November eight eight His parents lived in the Clontarf
Speaker 1: suburb of Dublin, Ireland. His father was also named Abraham Stoker.
Speaker 1: His mother was Charlotte Matilda Blake Thornley Stoker, and this
Speaker 1: was a large family. Braham had two siblings when he
Speaker 1: was born, and the Stokers had another four more children
Speaker 1: after him. And as a child, Bram, who was still
Speaker 1: going by Abraham at that age but to separate from
Speaker 1: his dad go ahead and go to his adopted name
Speaker 1: of Brann, was not healthy. He was confined to his
Speaker 1: bed or wherever an adult would carry him for the
Speaker 1: first seven years of his life. And we don't actually
Speaker 1: know what the nature of this illness was, and there
Speaker 1: have been all kinds of theories, from it possibly having
Speaker 1: been some sort of a fever, to a psychological element
Speaker 1: being part of it, possibly a trauma of some kind,
Speaker 1: but this is absolutely all speculation. We do not know
Speaker 1: what was up here. Most biographers make the case that
Speaker 1: this early phase of Stoker's life definitely influenced everything that
Speaker 1: came afterward. Braham's mother told him about the cholera epidemic
Speaker 1: that she had lived through, and specifically people being buried alive.
Speaker 1: His father would tell him family stories, including military battles,
Speaker 1: and also described plays that he had seen. All of
Speaker 1: this seated Stoker's imagination, and he had a lot of
Speaker 1: time alone with his thoughts since he couldn't really get
Speaker 1: up and go with his siblings and his peers. But
Speaker 1: despite this early start in this mystery ailment, Stoker made
Speaker 1: a full recovery. Biographer Barbara Belford, who was one of
Speaker 1: several biographers that wrote about him, mentions how very odd
Speaker 1: it is that Stoker never gave any detail of his
Speaker 1: illness in his writing about himself. This was not a
Speaker 1: family that was ignorant of medical matters. His uncle, William
Speaker 1: Stoker was the family doctor. He also had three brothers
Speaker 1: who became doctors. But the truth of those early years
Speaker 1: seems to have been obscured and lost to time. Although
Speaker 1: a lot of scholars of Stoker's work have scoured his
Speaker 1: writing for clues like any time he mentions a child
Speaker 1: being ill, or they like is this a reference to
Speaker 1: his youth? But details regarding the end of his illness
Speaker 1: are as murky as the illnesses itself. He would later write, quote,
Speaker 1: this early weakness passed away, and I grew into a
Speaker 1: strong boy in time, in large to the biggest member
Speaker 1: of my family. In eighteen sixty four, when Stoker was seventeen,
Speaker 1: he enrolled at Trinity College at the University of Dublin,
Speaker 1: And while he may have started life in pretty poor
Speaker 1: health as a college student, he was actually really athletic.
Speaker 1: He was an accomplished gymnast and a rugby player. He
Speaker 1: also participated in endurance racewalking. He won prizes in five
Speaker 1: and seven mile walks. He also cut a pretty striking figure.
Speaker 1: He was six ft two with red hair, and he
Speaker 1: was popular. Invited to join both the Historical Society and
Speaker 1: the Philosophical Society, and he was elected to positions of
Speaker 1: responsibility in each of them. His time at Trinity overlapped
Speaker 1: with that of Oscar Wilde, who was younger than Stoker.
Speaker 1: The two of them knew each other, and Bram had
Speaker 1: actually nominated Wild for membership of the Philosophical Society. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's an interesting overlap. It will come up again in
Speaker 1: just a bit. So here's the thing. Stoker's performance in
Speaker 1: school did not really hint at his future legacy. While
Speaker 1: he excelled at sports, was kind of an average student academically,
Speaker 1: but he was writing essays and papers about things that
Speaker 1: sparked his interest in his societal participations, including one's titled
Speaker 1: Sensationalism in Fiction and Society and the Necessity for Political Honesty.
Speaker 1: In eighteen seventy, he graduated from Trinity. He would later
Speaker 1: say he graduated with honors in mathematics. This is untrue.
Speaker 1: Trinity College actually has a biography of him, and they're like,
Speaker 1: we don't know where he got this. If you're wondering
Speaker 1: about it taking six years for him to earn a
Speaker 1: bachelor's degree, that's because he was also working for all
Speaker 1: but the first two years of that schooling. Stoker took
Speaker 1: a civil service job at Dublin Castle thanks to an
Speaker 1: assist from his father, who had also worked there as
Speaker 1: a civil servant until his retirement in eighteen sixty five.
Speaker 1: So he was working six and a half days a
Speaker 1: week while also taking classes. So at that point six
Speaker 1: years is past to me. Yes, me as well. And
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where it's almost like this
Speaker 1: sets the stage for his whole life of just being
Speaker 1: constantly working on a lot of things and making time
Speaker 1: for more things than anyone humans should fit in a day.
Speaker 1: But after he finished school, he continued in his civil
Speaker 1: service position, although he also continued to be interested in literature.
Speaker 1: In his last years of school, Stoker became somewhat obsessed
Speaker 1: with Walt Whitman, and that deep interest in the man
Speaker 1: and his work continued long after graduation from Trinity. In
Speaker 1: February seventy two, Stoker wrote Whitman a two thousand word
Speaker 1: letter in which he said, among other things, quote, you
Speaker 1: have shaken off the shackles and your wings are free.
Speaker 1: I have the shackles on my shoulder still, but I
Speaker 1: have no wings. Stoker's letter continues on to describe himself
Speaker 1: and detail including the sorts of things that a person
Speaker 1: today might normally share, maybe with a therapist, including how
Speaker 1: he chose to interact with people, as well as the
Speaker 1: sort of things he might tell pen pal, and then
Speaker 1: it concluded with quote, now I have told you all
Speaker 1: I know about myself. So couldn't actually mail this letter
Speaker 1: to Whitman, though instead he left it in his desk
Speaker 1: for the next four years, intending to make a clean
Speaker 1: copy to send. This is a level of procrastination I
Speaker 1: feel like I can experience in my life. I think
Speaker 1: we all can. There's also the possibility, and again this
Speaker 1: is a matter of speculation that some people have theorized
Speaker 1: that he recognized how sort of raw and familiar this
Speaker 1: letter was, and like, while that may have been his
Speaker 1: truest feelings, he was also a little trepidacious about actually
Speaker 1: sharing it, Like maybe I shouldn't send this to someone.
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't even want to acknowledge that I just
Speaker 1: wrote all of these things to my literary hero, because
Speaker 1: that's weird. We'll talk more about this whole thing on Friday.
Speaker 1: But after a gathering at which Whitman's work was criticized
Speaker 1: and rebutted in eighteen seven six, and we should point
Speaker 1: out that, you know, Whitman was controversial in his time.
Speaker 1: There were poems, for example, that were part of Leaves
Speaker 1: of Grass that were left out of some publications of
Speaker 1: that work, particularly in Britain. There was a lot of
Speaker 1: discussion about whether his work was appropriate in some cases,
Speaker 1: but at that gathering Stoker provided the defense position of
Speaker 1: the poet, And afterwards he wrote another letter to Walt Whitman,
Speaker 1: similarly familiar and kind of intimate. He talked about having
Speaker 1: defended him because he thinks he is such a great man.
Speaker 1: And this time he actually mailed it, as well as
Speaker 1: that one that had sat in his destroyer all of
Speaker 1: the intervening time. And Whitman got these letters and replied
Speaker 1: that he hoped that the two of them would one
Speaker 1: day meet, and he commented on the unconventional, manly and
Speaker 1: affectionate way in which Stoker had addressed him. Those are
Speaker 1: all adjectives that I am quoting from Whitman regarding Bram
Speaker 1: Stoker's writing. If if you want to know more about
Speaker 1: Walt Whitman and his writing, we have a previous episode
Speaker 1: on him that I feel has been a Saturday classic,
Speaker 1: not that long ago, but it has been long ago
Speaker 1: enough ago since we recorded it that I have no recollection.
Speaker 1: If it mentions Bram Stoker in any way, I don't
Speaker 1: think so, because I think I would have remembered. Uh
Speaker 1: so anyway, Whitman had been particularly delighted in all this
Speaker 1: by a passage in which Stoker called him the quote father, brother,
Speaker 1: and wife to his soul. Whitman later told a friend
Speaker 1: that he felt that Stoker had actually been writing to
Speaker 1: himself and kind of working through his own thoughts, and
Speaker 1: that he felt compelled to respond to the young man.
Speaker 1: Although Stoker had hoped that Whitman might one day travel
Speaker 1: to Ireland and they could meet, Whitman's health at the
Speaker 1: time kept that from ever happening. Yeah, he was not
Speaker 1: able to travel, um, but don't give up on that thought.
Speaker 1: This writing, these letters to Walt Whitman are the only
Speaker 1: instances of writing from Stoker's youth where he speaks so
Speaker 1: openly about himself and his inner world. He tends to
Speaker 1: kind of keep his private thoughts private for most of
Speaker 1: the rest of his writing, so they have become a
Speaker 1: really important part of his history. In eighteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: Stoker was promoted into the newly created position of Inspector
Speaker 1: of Courts of Petty Sessions, and this money had to
Speaker 1: travel to various municipalities and audit their small claims courts.
Speaker 1: Three years into the job, he published a book on
Speaker 1: this subject called The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions
Speaker 1: in Ireland. Bless him. This sounds dull as dirt. I
Speaker 1: mean it's literally like going to a court and hearing
Speaker 1: people talk about things. Uh. In one biography they mentioned
Speaker 1: like him him sitting in on hearings about things like
Speaker 1: dog licenses. Uh, you know, neighbors complaining against one another.
Speaker 1: But meanwhile, while working in his civil service job by
Speaker 1: day and probably finding it a little less than intellectually stimulating,
Speaker 1: Stoker started a side hustle in the evenings as a
Speaker 1: writer on more interesting topic. He first wrote theater reviews.
Speaker 1: He did not get paid for these, but he did
Speaker 1: create a significant change at the Dublin Evening Mail in
Speaker 1: working on them. Up to that point, theater reviews normally
Speaker 1: published two days after the show that was being reviewed,
Speaker 1: so if you went to a show on Friday night,
Speaker 1: the review of it would appear Sunday. But Stoker, who
Speaker 1: again was a very busy bee and would pack a
Speaker 1: lot of work into any day, instigated a shift so
Speaker 1: that next day reviews would run at the paper. So
Speaker 1: if you saw that Friday show, the review would run
Speaker 1: on the Saturday morning and learning the discipline of writing
Speaker 1: and doing this on a deadline enabled him to turn
Speaker 1: his pen to more creative efforts, and he started writing
Speaker 1: short stories as well. In eighteen seventy two, he had
Speaker 1: actually already published the first of his short stories, that
Speaker 1: was one called The Crystal Cup. But in the late
Speaker 1: eighteen seventies he also started editing a fiction magazine. In
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy five, he published a novella over several installments
Speaker 1: in the periodical The Shamrock. That story is called The
Speaker 1: Primrose Path was published under the name A Stoker Esquire
Speaker 1: that unfolds over ten chapters. This is a morality tale
Speaker 1: about the dangers of alcohol, and it tells the story
Speaker 1: of a carpenter from Dublin who moves to London and
Speaker 1: becomes an alcoholic, which ultimately leads to misery, so much misery.
Speaker 1: It's a very dark, dark story in many ways. In
Speaker 1: late eighteen seventy six, bram Stoker wrote a theater review
Speaker 1: that changed the course of his life. And we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about that. After we first paused for a
Speaker 1: sponsor break, as we said before the break. In eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy six, bram Stoker wrote a review this review was
Speaker 1: of Henry Irving's performance as Hamlet, and it was glowing.
Speaker 1: Bram was already something of a Henry Irving fan. He
Speaker 1: had seen the famous actor on stage for the first
Speaker 1: time in eighteen sixty seven, when he had attended a
Speaker 1: performance of The Rivals in Dublin, and he had, when
Speaker 1: he saw that first performance, been thinking about a career
Speaker 1: in acting himself, and Irving asked Stoker out to dinner
Speaker 1: as a thank you for this. This was a start
Speaker 1: of a long and very close friendship. Henry Irving became
Speaker 1: a pivotal figure in Bram Stoker's life, so it's worth
Speaker 1: giving his biography a little attention, just for context. So
Speaker 1: Irving was born John Henry broad Rib in Somerset, England,
Speaker 1: on February and when he was six his parents moved
Speaker 1: to Bristol, where his father had found a new job,
Speaker 1: but they left John Henry with an aunt and uncle
Speaker 1: in Cornwall rather than moving him to a city. He
Speaker 1: did rejoin his parents a few years later in London
Speaker 1: at the age of ten. He started work as a
Speaker 1: clerk as a young man, but really always wanted a
Speaker 1: life in the theater, so with financial assistance from a relative,
Speaker 1: he started purchasing costumes and wigs, and then he bought
Speaker 1: a role for himself in a local production of Romeo
Speaker 1: and Juliet. He appeared in that as Henry Irving. From
Speaker 1: there he started working with stock companies. This a bit
Speaker 1: performer and was an hund of shows touring Great Britain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I read one statistics that said something like over the
Speaker 1: course of three years he was in four hundred different roles,
Speaker 1: so he was doing a lot of very small bit
Speaker 1: players kind of acting. Irving really started gating recognition in
Speaker 1: the mid eighteen sixties, and in eighteen seventy one he
Speaker 1: became very famous for his appearance in The Bells at
Speaker 1: the Lyceum Theater. He appeared at the Lyceum as the
Speaker 1: star of the company for the next several years, and
Speaker 1: it was in late eighteen seventy six that he starred
Speaker 1: in Hamlet, which was of course reviewed by Bram Stoker
Speaker 1: for the Dublin Evening Mail, and after reading that review
Speaker 1: in the morning, Irving wanted to have dinner with Stoker
Speaker 1: that very evening. The two men wrote letters to one
Speaker 1: another for several years, and in eighteen seventies seven, Irving
Speaker 1: made a move that really changed Stoker's life. He purchased
Speaker 1: the Lyceum Theater in London and asked Stoker to be
Speaker 1: its manager. Irving would work as the director of the
Speaker 1: productions and of course also star in them, and then
Speaker 1: Stoker would handle the business, from tickets to press releases
Speaker 1: and managing the staff. This was a really big ask.
Speaker 1: Henry Irving was the most famous actor in late nineteenth
Speaker 1: century England, and he was also known to be intense
Speaker 1: and demanding and uncompromising. And Bram Stoker, who adored Irving,
Speaker 1: didn't think twice about it. He bid a jew to
Speaker 1: Ireland and his civil service job to start a new
Speaker 1: as Henry Irving's business manager, essentially in eighteen seventy eight,
Speaker 1: and this job was not a hobby job, so the
Speaker 1: two of them could hang out. The Lyceum was large,
Speaker 1: with a seating capacity of two thousand, and it was
Speaker 1: a social hub for London society in addition to all
Speaker 1: the regular business of his position, entertaining the illustrious patrons
Speaker 1: of the theater after shows with luxurious dinners that also
Speaker 1: fell under Stoker's job description. This is a gigantic job
Speaker 1: for one person. Yes, it is in doing this though
Speaker 1: he met numerous luminaries, including Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
Speaker 1: and Prime Minister Gladstone. This is so much work, and
Speaker 1: despite these long hours demanded of this job, Stoker still
Speaker 1: found time to write, and this was on top of
Speaker 1: the fact that he was writing several dozen letters a
Speaker 1: day on behalf of Henry Irving, so handling both his
Speaker 1: business correspondents and his personal correspondents and things like fan mail. Somehow,
Speaker 1: while doing all of this, Stoker also got married in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy eight to Florence Malcolm. Florence was eleven years
Speaker 1: younger than he was and was pretty outgoing, whereas he
Speaker 1: was more shy and reserved. Her claim to historical fame
Speaker 1: is being the exquisitely pretty girl that Oscar Wilde fell
Speaker 1: in love with, and she didn't apparently tell wild that
Speaker 1: she had married his friend from Trinity. While he was
Speaker 1: off traveling. Oscar Wilde wrote her a letter that he
Speaker 1: wished to have a gold cross back that he had
Speaker 1: given to her because it represents the sweetest time of
Speaker 1: his youth. She told him that he could come to
Speaker 1: their home and get it, but he thought that would
Speaker 1: be inappropriate and asked that they meet at her parents
Speaker 1: home instead, and Florence, for her part, also wanted something back.
Speaker 1: She wanted all of the letters that she had sent
Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde when they were corresponding and courting. It is
Speaker 1: unclear if these things were ever exchanged and given back
Speaker 1: to each other. Uh This whole interaction, and this sort
Speaker 1: of triangle of relationships is often summarized as Florence having
Speaker 1: the choice to marry either Bram Stoker or Oscar Wilde.
Speaker 1: But while Oscar Wilde, in his writing to her, does
Speaker 1: seem to have really been hurt by Florence marrying his friend,
Speaker 1: there's no evidence that he was ever suggesting that he
Speaker 1: should be her husband or that they should get married,
Speaker 1: and wild An Stoker did remain friends despite this whole thing.
Speaker 1: Bram and Florence had one child, a son named Noel.
Speaker 1: That was the first year after they were married, maybe
Speaker 1: in response to finding himself a father. In eighty one,
Speaker 1: Stoker published a book of children's stories called Under the Sunset.
Speaker 1: There didn't seem to be a lot of discord in
Speaker 1: the Stoker marriage, but there also didn't seem to be
Speaker 1: that much closeness or devotion between them either. No, they
Speaker 1: did a lot of stuff separately. Um Stoker was a
Speaker 1: man who valued efficiency and organization, and he was absolutely
Speaker 1: excellent at managing Irving's every need at the theater, and
Speaker 1: he seemed to put his job and Irving ahead of
Speaker 1: everything else in his life, including his own family. For example,
Speaker 1: the newlywed Stoker's even skipped a honeymoon instead, Bram and
Speaker 1: Florence had traveled to Birmingham so Bram could work. Stoker
Speaker 1: had not even told his boss that he was getting married.
Speaker 1: In eighteen eighty three, the Lyceum Theater mounted a tour
Speaker 1: in North America. Stoker managed all of the logistics, so
Speaker 1: the first of many such tours, and Stoker collected his
Speaker 1: experiences into a travelog called A Glimpse of America that
Speaker 1: came out in eighteen eighties six. On these travels to
Speaker 1: the U S, Stoker met two presidents, McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt,
Speaker 1: and more importantly, he was finally able to meet Walt Whitman.
Speaker 1: And at this point these two writers had been trading
Speaker 1: letters for years, so there was a pretty easy friendship
Speaker 1: to their meeting. Although descriptions kind of make it sound
Speaker 1: like Stoker was initially a little nervous there was one
Speaker 1: blemish to mar this beautiful occasion, though Henry Irving had
Speaker 1: insisted on going to meet Walt Whitman as well, so
Speaker 1: Stoker felt a little bit cheated of the intimate conversation
Speaker 1: that he had dreamed of having with his idol. Woman
Speaker 1: noted also that Stoker had switched from going by Abraham
Speaker 1: Stoker to Bram Stoker, and he did not particularly like
Speaker 1: that shift in name. He just didn't think it was
Speaker 1: very dignified. But overall it was a really, really good meeting,
Speaker 1: and Stoker declared Walt Whitman to be quote, a man
Speaker 1: amongst men. During the eighteen nineties, Stoker was still publishing novels,
Speaker 1: including The Waters Moo and that feature star crossed lovers
Speaker 1: as part of the story. There's also The Shoulder of Shasta,
Speaker 1: which is a romance set in northern California. Even as
Speaker 1: these books were being published, he was also working on
Speaker 1: what would become his masterpiece, Dracula. While Bram Stoker was
Speaker 1: normally a very fast writer, Dracula took him far longer
Speaker 1: than his previous novels. He wrote it over the course
Speaker 1: of seven years, and perhaps even longer, but that's how
Speaker 1: long we know he was working on it while he
Speaker 1: was touring with Irving and working on other writing projects.
Speaker 1: We'll talk a little more about some of the research
Speaker 1: that went into the most famous of Stoker's books after
Speaker 1: we first take a break for a word from the
Speaker 1: sponsors that keep stuff UMIs in history class going. If
Speaker 1: you look at the notes that Stoker compiled as he
Speaker 1: was assembling his Vampiric Tail, it becomes really apparent that
Speaker 1: he was, as we mentioned earlier, meticulous. He had carefully
Speaker 1: plotted out Jonathan Harker's journey to Transylvania by train, using
Speaker 1: actual train schedules and only using connections that he believed
Speaker 1: would have actually worked, and he created a table of
Speaker 1: all of the correspondents that would appear in the book
Speaker 1: to ensure that the dates that they posted in the
Speaker 1: dates that they would arrive in the recipient's hands was realistic.
Speaker 1: It also seems as though all of his work running
Speaker 1: at theater and tours kind of informed the way he
Speaker 1: constructed narrative. He also was a writer who really believed
Speaker 1: in research, and his work researching what would become the
Speaker 1: novel Dracula is really deeply associated with the town of Whitby, England,
Speaker 1: on the country's east coast. He is said to have
Speaker 1: visited a library in Whitby to look at a specific
Speaker 1: selection of the Special Collections title by William Wilkinson, which
Speaker 1: is an account of the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia
Speaker 1: with various political observations relating to them. It is from
Speaker 1: this book that he is said to have learned of
Speaker 1: the name Dracula in relation to lad Tepeesh. Prior to this,
Speaker 1: Stoker was planning to name his villainous character Count vomp Here.
Speaker 1: This was a rare book. It's an odd thing for
Speaker 1: Stoker to have just known about. But a friend he
Speaker 1: knew from his theater circle, Arminius van Berry, had told
Speaker 1: him about the story of the locking a count and
Speaker 1: the book that he could find it in. Yeah, piece
Speaker 1: of knowledge. It's a very strange thing, right. I can
Speaker 1: only imagine as a librarian having someone walk in and
Speaker 1: be like, hey, you know that rare book that you
Speaker 1: don't even tell people you have. I would like to
Speaker 1: see it please. I mean, it's literally that strange um.
Speaker 1: Stoker then visited the Whippy Museum to work on that
Speaker 1: route that we mentioned a moment ago for Harker to take,
Speaker 1: including making notes about latitude and longitude, and next Stoker
Speaker 1: consulted with the Royal Coast Guard at the nearby harbor
Speaker 1: and discussed the topic that would figure prominently in the
Speaker 1: story of Dracula. In five, the ship Dmitri had left
Speaker 1: the port of Narva in Estonia and had on the
Speaker 1: ground near Whitby. According to the locals, only a few
Speaker 1: members of the crew survived, and there was a black
Speaker 1: dog that emerged from the ship and ran off while
Speaker 1: rescue efforts were under way. The Dmitri had been carrying
Speaker 1: crates of silver sand. That may sound mysterious, but silver
Speaker 1: sand is actually a fine white sand that is commonly
Speaker 1: used in construction mortar. But if you've read Dracula, that
Speaker 1: might sound familiar, but not exactly the way you remember it.
Speaker 1: Stoker borrowed the story of the Dimitri for the novel,
Speaker 1: making the ship the conveyance of Count Dracula from his
Speaker 1: home country to London, but in the fictional version the
Speaker 1: name is changed to the Demeter, which also invokes the
Speaker 1: Greek goddess and its associations with the cycle of life
Speaker 1: and death, and Narva changes to Varna, Bulgaria as the
Speaker 1: departure point for the ship, and Stoker's fictionalized version the
Speaker 1: silver sand remains, but the ship is also filled with
Speaker 1: crates of earth from Count Dracula's homeland, and then, of
Speaker 1: course the black Dog becomes an embodiment of the vampire himself.
Speaker 1: Stoker's research wasn't confined to Whitby. He continued to consult
Speaker 1: the library regularly to make notes that would contribute to
Speaker 1: Dracula once he was back in London, but would be
Speaker 1: is very closely associated with the book at this point.
Speaker 1: Vampire stories long predated Dracula, and like there are a
Speaker 1: vampire like entities like all over the world in various
Speaker 1: mythology and folklore and fiction. But Stoker's version of vampireism
Speaker 1: is really what we've come to know as like the
Speaker 1: classic vampire tropes, the vampire being able to shape shift
Speaker 1: into animals, the Count suddenly becoming almost crazed with thirst
Speaker 1: when Harker cuts himself shaving, and the vampire needing to
Speaker 1: be invited into a home. All that's present here in
Speaker 1: the nineteen o one Icelandic edition of Dracula titled Mocked
Speaker 1: Meer Crana which translates to powers of darkness. The preface
Speaker 1: that Stoker wrote includes insistence that the events relate in
Speaker 1: the Dracula story are true, writing quote, I am quite
Speaker 1: convinced that there is no doubt whatever that the events
Speaker 1: here described really took place, however unbelievable and incomprehensible they
Speaker 1: might appear at first sight, and I am further convinced
Speaker 1: that they must always remain, to some extent incomprehensible, although
Speaker 1: continuing research in psychology and natural sciences may in years
Speaker 1: to come give logical explanation of such strange happenings, which
Speaker 1: at present neither scientists nor the secret police can understand.
Speaker 1: I state again that this mysterious tragedy which is here
Speaker 1: described is completely true in all its external respects, though
Speaker 1: naturally I have reached a different conclusion on certain points
Speaker 1: than those involved in the story. But the events are incontrovertible,
Speaker 1: and so many people know of them that they cannot
Speaker 1: be denied. So this has led to all kinds of
Speaker 1: speculation since it came out about whether Stoker was referencing
Speaker 1: Jack the Ripper here. The Icelandic version of the book
Speaker 1: is different from the originally published version though having been
Speaker 1: abridged quite a bit when it was translated back into English,
Speaker 1: and it became really apparent that the original translator of
Speaker 1: Stoker's work into Icelandic Vladimar Asmondson, had reworked the plot
Speaker 1: significantly and created a very different story. I remember when
Speaker 1: the English speaking world found out about this and was like, what, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's actually really good. Um. If anybody wants to seek
Speaker 1: it out, I think right now as we record this
Speaker 1: in October, Uh, if you have an Amazon Prime account,
Speaker 1: I think you can download the Kindle version for free,
Speaker 1: and Audible has the audio version available as a freebee. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's really quite delightful. And if you are a
Speaker 1: person who loves Dracula, it's very interesting because there are
Speaker 1: characters you have never seen before in the story are
Speaker 1: events play out very differently. Some things are condensed, some
Speaker 1: things are gone completely. Uh. And it's just a new
Speaker 1: way to experience this piece of lore. Yeah. I also
Speaker 1: feel like I should just clarify that most people in
Speaker 1: Iceland also speak English. When I say the English speaking world,
Speaker 1: I mean like places like the United States in Britain. Yes. Uh.
Speaker 1: When Dracula was originally published in seven it was really
Speaker 1: well received, but it really didn't hit the global long
Speaker 1: reaching popularity it would eventually achieve. It was kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, if you see a movie and it's like
Speaker 1: a great movie that year, but you don't think, like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is going to launch a kajillion things. Uh. Stoker's mother, Charlotte,
Speaker 1: is said to have quite liked it and actually believed
Speaker 1: it would be a huge success and and be one
Speaker 1: of the things for which her son would be remembered.
Speaker 1: Publishers in the United States were not initially interested in
Speaker 1: this story, so Stoker actually purchased the U S copyright
Speaker 1: for himself. The first American edition of the book appeared
Speaker 1: in eight Analysis of the text alongside Stoker's life story
Speaker 1: has sometimes led people to believe that Dracula as a
Speaker 1: character is based at least partially on Henry Irving and
Speaker 1: his demanding nature. It's also possible that rather than modeling
Speaker 1: it on Irving, Stoker was kind of thinking about how
Speaker 1: Irving could play the count in a stage version of
Speaker 1: the story that actually did not work out. Stoker had
Speaker 1: arranged a reading of the Dracula story in play form
Speaker 1: at the theater before the novel came out, Irving declared
Speaker 1: it dreadful the fool Um. At this point in time,
Speaker 1: the Lyceum was faltering. The plays that they staged were
Speaker 1: not doing as well as they once had, and Stoker
Speaker 1: had thought that Dracula might be an opportunity to regain
Speaker 1: some interest in financial footing for the business, but Irving
Speaker 1: would not have it, and then the theater had a fire.
Speaker 1: The building was not destroyed, but they lost a lot
Speaker 1: of their stock, props, and scenery. It was expensive and
Speaker 1: messy as all of these problems piled up, and the
Speaker 1: Lyceum had to enter into a receivership so that its
Speaker 1: assets could be liquidated to cover its debts. The productions continued,
Speaker 1: although in less grand stagings than the theater had once seen.
Speaker 1: Henry Irving gave his last performance in October nineteen o five.
Speaker 1: He died that night, just after returning to his hotel.
Speaker 1: Stoker got there soon after his friend had collapsed, but
Speaker 1: it was too late to save his life. After Irving's death,
Speaker 1: Bram Stoker wrote about his own life and his long
Speaker 1: business partnership and friendship with Irving in a two volume
Speaker 1: book titled Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving. This was Stoker's
Speaker 1: most popular work in his lifetime. Although this was not
Speaker 1: some scandalous reveal of the man behind the public face.
Speaker 1: Bram Stoker wrote of Irving in the most positive, agilation
Speaker 1: soaked way imaginable. At this point, Stoker was without the
Speaker 1: job that had required all of his attention for so
Speaker 1: many years, and so he turned to writing full time.
Speaker 1: From nineteen o five to nineteen eleven, he published several
Speaker 1: short stories and novels in addition to his Irving memoir.
Speaker 1: The last of these was The Layer of the White Worm.
Speaker 1: It's a very strange horror tale with a lot going
Speaker 1: on in terms of plot threads, including a story about
Speaker 1: Mongoose's Yeah, there's a whole lot going on in that.
Speaker 1: Some of it is um very outdated in terms of
Speaker 1: how different people so the worlds are perceived. In his
Speaker 1: last year, Stoker found himself financially strapped. He did some
Speaker 1: more theater management to make ends meet, but primarily he
Speaker 1: continued to focus on writing. Dracula continued to be popular
Speaker 1: enough to earn some royalties, and Stoker also wrote a
Speaker 1: bit as a journalist for the Daily Chronicle, profiling notable
Speaker 1: figures of the day. He also did something that seems
Speaker 1: a little bit odd, which is that he took up
Speaker 1: the flag of censorship, as in he was pro censorship.
Speaker 1: He advocated for banning inappropriate books and writing that quote.
Speaker 1: A close analysis will show that the only emotions which
Speaker 1: in the long run harm are those arising from sex impulses.
Speaker 1: During that time, his health also declined. He had a
Speaker 1: series of strokes starting in nineteen o six, and in
Speaker 1: nineteen ten he had what he described as a breakdown
Speaker 1: from overwork. That was on a petition for a grant
Speaker 1: from the Royal Literary Fund in nineteen eleven. Continually, dwindling
Speaker 1: finances led Bram and Florence to move into a more
Speaker 1: modest apartment. They left the one that had been their
Speaker 1: home in London for more than three decades. Bram Stoker
Speaker 1: died at the age of sixty four in nineteen twelve.
Speaker 1: That was the same week that the Titanic sank. In
Speaker 1: the days leading up to his passing, he had, like
Speaker 1: all of London, been transfixed by the story of the
Speaker 1: ship's demise and the investigation that was soon to begin.
Speaker 1: Even in death, Stoker left something of a mystery. There
Speaker 1: are three causes of death listed they are kidney disease, exhaustion,
Speaker 1: and locomotor ataxia, So that last one, locomotor ataxia, was
Speaker 1: generally used as a synonym for tertiary syphilis, and that,
Speaker 1: of course has led to all kinds of speculation about various,
Speaker 1: usually salacious ways that he could have contracted syphilis. But
Speaker 1: looking at all of his symptoms and his behavior leading
Speaker 1: up to his death, that doesn't really add up. It's
Speaker 1: possible that he was misdiagnosed due to some of the
Speaker 1: lingering effects of the strokes he had had, but we
Speaker 1: will not ever really know. Yeah, I have read. Uh
Speaker 1: some biographers are like, We're not even sure why the
Speaker 1: corner put multiple causes of death when just saying kidney
Speaker 1: disease would have covered it. Um. But this fascination with
Speaker 1: the possibility that Stoker could have had syphilis is really
Speaker 1: part of a much bigger speculation that has gone on
Speaker 1: for over a century about the author's sexuality, and he
Speaker 1: seems in so many ways to be a tangle of
Speaker 1: repression and confusion regarding sexuality and desire in his writing,
Speaker 1: with so much erotic content that it sometimes seems he
Speaker 1: doesn't even realize he is, including There are multitudes of
Speaker 1: papers analyzing the sexuality of Dracula and the disdain for
Speaker 1: the Victorian new woman that is present in a lot
Speaker 1: of Stoker's work. His obsession with figures like Whitman and Irving,
Speaker 1: and his friendship with Oscar Wilde, who he saw goes
Speaker 1: through the trial that ultimately, you know, kind of ruined
Speaker 1: Oscar Wild's life, have naturally led to speculation about an
Speaker 1: attraction to men that he may never have truly recognized.
Speaker 1: But this, like his childhood infirmity and his cause of death,
Speaker 1: can never be conclusively known. What we do know, though,
Speaker 1: is that Dracula has never been out of print. It
Speaker 1: has been adapted into films and musicals and ballet, and
Speaker 1: has inspired innumerable other vampire stories, and it also just
Speaker 1: continues to do so. Oh Bram Stoker's Dracula. Um, we
Speaker 1: can talk more about it in the behind the scenes. Yes,
Speaker 1: he's so um fascinating and complex. And I really did
Speaker 1: not know all of that while Whitman stuff to the
Speaker 1: degree that laid well and I took a second while
Speaker 1: we were kind of in our in in a sponsor
Speaker 1: break movements um to see, I don't think we mentioned
Speaker 1: any connection to bram Stoker in the Walt Whitman episode. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Um I yeah, I want to
Speaker 1: rewatch all of the Dracula now and think about him
Speaker 1: in this way. Um. I don't have regular listener mail,
Speaker 1: I have an illustrative tale. I'm eager for this. Well,
Speaker 1: it's just one of those things where it's kind of
Speaker 1: a peek behind how this works. And you mentioning that
Speaker 1: you looked up in the Walt Whitman episode whether we
Speaker 1: mentioned bram Stoker kind of plays into it. Um. This
Speaker 1: is uh. I got a Facebook message from our listener
Speaker 1: and our friend Mariam, who I met through the podcast
Speaker 1: and and have you know, exchanged notes with back and forth.
Speaker 1: We met her also at one of our live shows
Speaker 1: and she mentioned that she was doing paper on pandemics
Speaker 1: and she had found an older episode of Stuff You
Speaker 1: Missed in History class that talked about the Black Plague
Speaker 1: and she thought there had been a more recent one
Speaker 1: with the two of us, but couldn't find it. And
Speaker 1: it gave me a moment where I was like, I
Speaker 1: have to look this up because I don't remember. Um.
Speaker 1: And it is one of those things that I feel
Speaker 1: like comes up often and We've talked about it a
Speaker 1: little before, but I I always like to illustrate it.
Speaker 1: It literally just the same as we were, like, did
Speaker 1: we do a bram Stoker episode? Um, there are moments
Speaker 1: where the Black Death and things like plague in particular,
Speaker 1: and bram Stoker is another good example, and Walt Woman
Speaker 1: because he comes up in many things where it's really
Speaker 1: hard to remember what we haven't haven't not done as
Speaker 1: a full episode, particularly when that topic comes up in
Speaker 1: many other episodes as sort of a secondary piece of
Speaker 1: the story. So it it always cracks me up a
Speaker 1: little bit because people will often be like, you did
Speaker 1: an episode on this, and we're like, no, we'd and
Speaker 1: sometimes we will realize that what has happened is that
Speaker 1: they have stitched together what they thought was a longer
Speaker 1: episode in their head. Uh. Sometimes it is people confusing
Speaker 1: our show for other shows. Yeah, and I'm not making
Speaker 1: fun of anybody, because I have absolutely done this before
Speaker 1: where I've been like I remember hearing this on an
Speaker 1: episode of n Invisible and it was like actually on
Speaker 1: Criminal or something like it was those shows are very dissimilar.
Speaker 1: I don't know how. I don't think that's a real
Speaker 1: example from my actual life. But we have for sure
Speaker 1: had people email us and say, hey, I just I'm
Speaker 1: trying to find this episode you all did and I
Speaker 1: can't find it anywhere, and I'm like, that was not us.
Speaker 1: I'm really sorry. Yeah, it's just uh an interesting illustratous
Speaker 1: example of how and sometimes we don't even know for sure.
Speaker 1: We literally have to go back to an index that
Speaker 1: Tracy put together a while back when we were changing
Speaker 1: um over the way our website worked, and she just
Speaker 1: gathered all of our metadata into a big document, especially
Speaker 1: when you go back to shows that were before you
Speaker 1: and I hosted. I I have a lot of gaps
Speaker 1: in my knowledge of that, even though we try to
Speaker 1: keep track of it and look at it periodically. But
Speaker 1: it is an interesting thing and I feel like it's
Speaker 1: a good illustrative example of what has often come up
Speaker 1: in the show. I feel like it's come up a
Speaker 1: lot lately of cases like Bram Stoker where he misremembers
Speaker 1: things about his past, and there are oftentimes it came
Speaker 1: up to in the Elena Blovotsky episode. People will report
Speaker 1: even their own biographies incorrectly, and sometimes in some cases
Speaker 1: the initial response is to presume a sort of nefarious
Speaker 1: level that they're lying or covering something up. But it's
Speaker 1: also worth noting that people have faulty memories. Is often
Speaker 1: also what occludes historical records is that even when you're
Speaker 1: talking is someone fairly recently after an event has taken place,
Speaker 1: they will relate the events incorrectly. Um. Just just a
Speaker 1: little point of reference for everyone as we all talk
Speaker 1: about history all the time, to remember personal personal accounts
Speaker 1: are great, uh and sometimes like the most primary source
Speaker 1: you can get. But also to remember that they are
Speaker 1: not remembering necessarily right. And one day someone will um
Speaker 1: be like, Holly and Tracy remembered stuff incorrectly, and we'll
Speaker 1: be like, that is correct. Yeah, I definitely remembered it
Speaker 1: incorrectly all the time. Anyway, that was my little trip down.
Speaker 1: I wonder if people realize how tricky it is to
Speaker 1: keep dragon what we've actually done episodes. If you would
Speaker 1: like to write to us and ask us questions about
Speaker 1: episodes we may or may not remember doing, you can
Speaker 1: do so at History Podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also find us on social media as missed
Speaker 1: in History, and you can subscribe to the show them.
Speaker 1: Just remember to do that you only have to remember
Speaker 1: for a second. You can do that on the I
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, at Apple Podcasts, or wherever it is
Speaker 1: you listen. Stuff you missed in History Class is a
Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.