[Midnight Cowgirl]

On May 26, 1897, Dracula, the classic Bram Stoker novel, went on sale in London. Here are 5 things you probably didn’t know about the story that became known as a masterpiece of Victorian-era Gothic literature.......



Rich Food May Have Inspired the Story

Vampire legends have been around for millennia, including tales by the Romans, Mesopotamians and Ancient Greeks. Gothic fiction written during the Victorian era often evolved from someone’s nightmare, and Bram Stoker may not have been an exception. Harry Ludlam, his biographer, said Stoker felt a compulsion to write the story after he ate a rich crab dish at supper and had a nightmare involving a vampire rising from his tomb. Stoker left behind notes about the story he wrote, and it is unclear whether they were about his dream or the book he was working on.



Stoker’s Vampire Wasn’t an Original Story

Actor Bela Lugosi played Count Dracula in 1931, speaking the part with his Hungarian accent. The movie was adapted from the popular stage play. On June 17, 1816, Lord Byron was staying at Lake Geneva, Switzerland, with friends Percy Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and Dr. John Polidori, who was Byron’s physician, and challenged them to write a ghost story. Mary Godwin, who later became Mary Shelley, wrote Frankenstein, while Dr. Polidori wrote The Vampyre. The gloomy mood that brought forth these stories may have been influenced by the eruption of Mount Tamboro in Indonesia in 1815 that gave rise to severe weather disturbances that caused a year without a summer.
Dracula Was Written Shortly After Jack the Ripper Terrorized London



Dracula Was Written Shortly After Jack the Ripper Terrorized London

One influence on Stoker’s writing of Dracula in 1890 might have been the terror that swept London because of Jack the Ripper and his unspeakable crimes, which raised speculation about who the Ripper was and why he was killing women. Both Dracula and the Ripper stalked victims in Victorian England, killed them and then disappeared, seemingly without a trace. Also, the address where Dracula supposedly stored his coffins turns into Flower and Dean streets further up, which is where several of the Ripper’s victims lived.



Count Dracula Could Be Based on Stoker’s Employer

Henry Irving, who owned London’s Lyceum Theatre and was a well-known Shakespearean actor, was Stoker’s boss. Stoker was his secretary, press agent and manager, so he worked long hours, probably for little appreciation. Some have speculated that Henry Irving was the model for Dracula because he was described as egotistic and mesmerizing. But in any event, the famed actor apparently hated the performance of Dracula he saw on stage, calling it “dreadful.”



A Real Exhumation May Have Been the Inspiration for Lucy’s Death

The character of Lucy, who is devampirized by her suitor when he drives a stake into her heart, may be borrowed from a grizzly experience by artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1869. Rossetti’s red-haired wife had died a few years previously, and he placed love poems wound in her hair in the coffin with her. Unfortunately, he changed his mind some years later and had the body exhumed to retrieve the poems, and some of her hair came out in Rossetti’s hand when he did.


5 Things You Didn't Know About Dracula

[Taltarzac725]

Originally Posted by Midnight Cowgirl

On May 26, 1897, Dracula, the classic Bram Stoker novel, went on sale in London. Here are 5 things you probably didn’t know about the story that became known as a masterpiece of Victorian-era Gothic literature.......



Rich Food May Have Inspired the Story

Vampire legends have been around for millennia, including tales by the Romans, Mesopotamians and Ancient Greeks. Gothic fiction written during the Victorian era often evolved from someone’s nightmare, and Bram Stoker may not have been an exception. Harry Ludlam, his biographer, said Stoker felt a compulsion to write the story after he ate a rich crab dish at supper and had a nightmare involving a vampire rising from his tomb. Stoker left behind notes about the story he wrote, and it is unclear whether they were about his dream or the book he was working on.



Stoker’s Vampire Wasn’t an Original Story

Actor Bela Lugosi played Count Dracula in 1931, speaking the part with his Hungarian accent. The movie was adapted from the popular stage play. On June 17, 1816, Lord Byron was staying at Lake Geneva, Switzerland, with friends Percy Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and Dr. John Polidori, who was Byron’s physician, and challenged them to write a ghost story. Mary Godwin, who later became Mary Shelley, wrote Frankenstein, while Dr. Polidori wrote The Vampyre. The gloomy mood that brought forth these stories may have been influenced by the eruption of Mount Tamboro in Indonesia in 1815 that gave rise to severe weather disturbances that caused a year without a summer.
Dracula Was Written Shortly After Jack the Ripper Terrorized London



Dracula Was Written Shortly After Jack the Ripper Terrorized London

One influence on Stoker’s writing of Dracula in 1890 might have been the terror that swept London because of Jack the Ripper and his unspeakable crimes, which raised speculation about who the Ripper was and why he was killing women. Both Dracula and the Ripper stalked victims in Victorian England, killed them and then disappeared, seemingly without a trace. Also, the address where Dracula supposedly stored his coffins turns into Flower and Dean streets further up, which is where several of the Ripper’s victims lived.



Count Dracula Could Be Based on Stoker’s Employer

Henry Irving, who owned London’s Lyceum Theatre and was a well-known Shakespearean actor, was Stoker’s boss. Stoker was his secretary, press agent and manager, so he worked long hours, probably for little appreciation. Some have speculated that Henry Irving was the model for Dracula because he was described as egotistic and mesmerizing. But in any event, the famed actor apparently hated the performance of Dracula he saw on stage, calling it “dreadful.”



A Real Exhumation May Have Been the Inspiration for Lucy’s Death

The character of Lucy, who is devampirized by her suitor when he drives a stake into her heart, may be borrowed from a grizzly experience by artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1869. Rossetti’s red-haired wife had died a few years previously, and he placed love poems wound in her hair in the coffin with her. Unfortunately, he changed his mind some years later and had the body exhumed to retrieve the poems, and some of her hair came out in Rossetti’s hand when he did.


5 Things You Didn't Know About Dracula

It is also Christopher Lee's birthday today which seems like a perfect bit of information about a thread about Dracula. Christopher Lee - Rotten Tomatoes