Good morning.

Today, a ruined abbey on a Yorkshire cliff… and the theatre manager who turned a borrowed name into the most famous vampire in the world of books.

Let’s begin.

The Vampire Who Never Paid the Rent

Bram Stoker—Dracula

His name is Bram Stoker. By day he runs the Lyceum, one of the most famous theatres in London, as business manager to the great actor Henry Irving. In the evenings, he writes.

In the Whitby library he finds an old book about Wallachia, in what is now Romania. It mentions a 15th-century prince named Dracula. Stoker copies the name into his notes, along with a line saying that it meant “devil.”

He had already been planning a vampire story since March. Now it had a name, and a setting.

Stoker spent seven years on it. He researched Transylvanian folklore, train timetables, shipwrecks and the law of property. The whole book takes the form of letters, diary entries and newspaper cuttings, so the reader pieces the horror together like a detective.

The working title was The Un-Dead. Only shortly before publication did it become, simply, Dracula.

It came out in London on 26 May 1897, in a plain cloth binding the colour of mustard. This is what the first readers held.

Bram Stoker, “Dracula,” first edition, Archibald Constable and Company, London, 1897. Photo: British Library. Public domain.

No bats, no blood, no castle. Just a yellow cover with red letters, priced at six shillings.

Inside, the story begins with a young English lawyer, Jonathan Harker, travelling to a castle in the Carpathian Mountains to help a nobleman buy a house in England. He soon realises he is a prisoner. And then the Count sails for England, and comes ashore at Whitby, in the shape of a great black dog.

Reviews were warm. One of the warmest came from a friend, the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

We can still see Stoker at work. His handwritten notes for the novel survived, with plans for characters, places and chapters.

Bram Stoker’s notes on the characters of “Dracula,” before 1897. Rosenbach Museum, Philadelphia. Public domain.

Stoker dreamed of a stage version starring Irving as the Count. A few days before publication, he even staged a reading of the whole book at the Lyceum, to protect the stage rights. Irving, it seems, was not interested.

The novel sold steadily, but it never made Stoker rich. He died in London in April 1912, aged 64, in modest circumstances.

Bram Stoker, 1906. Public domain.

His widow, Florence, guarded the rights fiercely. In 1922, a German studio released a silent film called Nosferatu, with the vampire renamed Count Orlok. Nobody had asked her permission.

Florence sued, and won. A German court ordered every copy of the film destroyed. But a few prints survived, and Nosferatu is now counted among the great films of the silent era.

Across the Atlantic, the book had found new readers of its own. The first American edition, in 1899, finally put a castle on the cover.

Cover of the first American edition of “Dracula,” Doubleday and McClure, New York, 1899. Public domain.

The flood came with the films. In 1931, Bela Lugosi’s cape and accent fixed the Count’s image for good. Since then, Dracula has appeared on screen hundreds of times.

I climbed the 199 steps to Whitby Abbey on a grey October evening, with the wind coming hard off the North Sea. At the top, among the gravestones, I finally understood why a man on holiday had looked at this place and seen a vampire.

For more on the first edition, and on Florence Stoker’s fight over Nosferatu, the Toronto Public Library has a short, lively piece: Dracula: A Bloody Good First Edition →

Stoker borrowed a name from a library book and spent seven years building a monster around it. The Count never paid him much rent… but he has never moved out.

Three Things Worth Knowing

Curious & Controversial

Connoisseur’s Diary

Worth Seeing This Week

Twice a year, Whitby fills with people dressed for a Victorian funeral. The autumn Whitby Goth Weekend runs from Friday 30 October to Sunday 1 November, right over Halloween, with markets, bands and thousands of visitors in black velvet.

Where: Whitby, North Yorkshire, on the coast about an hour east of York.  Tickets: walking the town is free; concerts and club nights are ticketed. The fringe festival Revenant, at the Royal Hotel on the West Cliff, starts from about £49.75.  Insider tip: Climb the 199 steps from the old town to the abbey and St Mary’s churchyard at dusk. That is the scene Stoker set in his novel, and the town will be very busy, so book a room early.  Revenant tickets at Skiddle →

Worth Reading

Something in the Blood: The Untold Story of Bram Stoker — David J. Skal (2016). A rich, absorbing biography of the man behind the Count, from a sickly Dublin childhood to the Lyceum and beyond.

Explore Further

Read: A Bloody Good First Edition →, the Toronto Public Library on the yellow cover and the Nosferatu lawsuit.

Browse: Dracula →, a full history of the novel, its sources and its afterlife.

Tonight’s Quiz

1. Where did Stoker find the name “Dracula”?

A) In a Romanian folk song

B) In a book in Whitby’s public library

C) In a play at the Lyceum

D) In a letter from a friend

2. What was the novel’s working title?

A) The Count

B) The Un-Dead

C) The Vampire of Whitby

D) Night Visitor

3. What did a German court order in the Nosferatu case?

A) A new ending

B) A fine for the actors

C) The destruction of every copy

D) A new title

If the links above don’t respond in your email app, just reply with your answers—I’ll write back.

Stoker wrote dozens of books and is remembered for one. He spent his life in the shadow of a famous actor, and then created a character more famous than any actor who has played him.

Tomorrow, a philosopher who tutored a teenage emperor… and was later ordered by his own pupil to die.

In good taste,
Charles T. Mayfair

Editor, Connoisseur Daily