From the Shadow of Dracula: A Life of Bram Stoker (Paperback)

by Paul Murray (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Bram Stoker was a larger-than-life individual with more than a hint of the Transylvanian Count in his personality. This groundbreaking new biography illuminates a multi-faceted man of enormous creativity, and presents Dracula in the context of Stoker’s life and entire fictional output.

About the Author
Paul Murray, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, is a writer and diplomat who has served in London, Tokyo, Ottawa, New York and Seoul. His biography, A Fantastic Journey: The Life and Literature of Lafcadio Hearn (1993), won the Koizumi Yakumo Literary Prize (Japan) in 1995. He has published and lectured in Europe, the USA and Asia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Pimlico (December 27, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0712673113
• ISBN-13: 978-0712673112
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 4.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,301,167 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Biography, April 26, 2006

By	Michael Langthorne (South Bend, IN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was surprised at the style of this bio -- not purely chronological, that's for sure! Murray takes us through Bram's life, but shows us so many "links" and connections to well-known people of the time that I wish more could be uncovered about this surprising writer. As a young man he and his family were friends of the Wilde's, and growing up with Oscar Wilde had to be a trip in itself. And yet Bram was also raised in conservatively Christian values, and as he matured he was extremely opposed to various forms of indecency, even to the point of favoring censorship. He and his wife had one child, apparently did not care for the 'baby experience,' and thereafter his wife supposedly was frigid as well. So what's a healthy guy to do, especially if he manages a popular London theatre (working around all those actors all day!) and is acquainted with an enormous number of society people of the day? Friend of Walt Whitman when he was a young man, friend of Mark Twain in mid-life, and friend of Winston Churchill near the end of his life. Writer, of course, of Dracula, but also several other gothic novels and stories. Oh yes, and Bram died from the effects of what was most probably syphillis. Stoker is a complex character in his own right, and my only dissatisfaction with the book is that Murray could not tell us more.