Customer Reviews

Bram Stoker: Author of Dracula (World Writers: Writers of Imagination)

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Whitelaw writes for children. Her book is an efficient overview of the life and works of the creator of Dracula. Abraham Stoker was a tall red-headed man whose rather ordinary physical appearance was at odds with the bizarre and gruesome subjects of his writing. Whitelaw refrains from speculating on Stoker's character while including many interesting facts that illustrate complexity: his all-absorbing relationship with the actor Henry Irving, his marriage to the beautiful Florence whereby they lived largely separate lives, his only son's jealousy for time with his father, his tremendous work ethic.
Stoker did not walk until he was seven. As a child, he was often alone in his room, his vivid imagination fed by night-time visits from his beloved mother Charlotte. She was an excellent story-teller and lived to see and cheer on the publication of Dracula. The novel appeared too late to be popular: romanticism was giving way to realism in the arts. Also, a book-keeping oversight kept him from owning the copyright and therefore profits when the book was published in America.
Bram Stoker was a contemporary and friend of Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, the actor Henry Irving, and Oscar Wilde. Although writing and acting were not considered worthy vocations in Victorian England, he lived and worked in these venues all his adult life. He died in relative poverty at the age of 64.