1. Bram Stoker & Dracula

2. Main Events in Stoker’s Life
Born: Clontarf, Dublin on November 8, 1847
Anglo-Irish (raised a Protestant)
Stoker was the 3rd of 7 children.
Bedridden until the age of 7.
Educated at Trinity College in Dublin.
At university he became interested in theater and worked as a theater critic.
1878: marries Florence Balcombe, who had previsously been courted by Oscar Wilde. (Stoker and Wilde were friends.)

3. Main Events in Stoker’s Life
Stoker moves to London, manager of the Lycem Theatre.
1879: Only son is born.
Travels around Britain and Eastern Europe – locations significant to Dracula.
Began writing while working as theater manager.
Writes fiction throughout the 1890s and early- twentieth century.
Dies: London on April 20, 1912.

4. Some of Stoker’s Novels
Best known for Dracula
Selected novels:
The Snake’s Pass (1890)
The Shoulder of Shasta (1895)
Dracula (1897)
The Mystery of the Sea (1902)
Lady Athlyne (1908)
The Lady of the Shroud (1909)
The Lair of the White Worm (1911)

5. Dracula Considered a gothic novel.
Believed in home rule, but that Ireland should remain part of Great Britain.
A sign of Stoker’s repressed homosexuality?
Epistolary in form?
Themes:
sexuality
science vs. religion vs. superstition
East vs. West
colonization
New woman
Industrialization / travel / new media