But it is Bram, always Bram Stoker that we must return to when we think of this fantastical icon and its widespread impact on all things folklorically vampiric. He understood the nature of theater too well to think that he could totally avoid the limelight but he was at some pains throughout his life to become a man better suited to shaping things in a back ground capacity. A man who knew how to put on a show but who preferred to remain behind the curtain himself..The man who held up a distorting mirror before a repressed Victorian era while acting as a literary midwife to the rebirth of a golden age of Gothic literature. imagine a generation experiencing Dracula by candle light or the flickering imperfect light of a gas jet.
This lovely book by Harry Ludlam takes the time, near the end of the book, to present for the reader an enlightening history of Gothic literature, from its gruesome inception through its meandering permutations. Dracula was a single blossom in a winter wreath, rather it was a scarlet bloom throwing seeds into the fertile ground of the imagination of generations. It was a heady concotion for its time, one that bordered on the fringes of what passed for acceptable discourse. Written by a big, bearded Irish man who by all accounts was full to the brim with a passion for life and in particular an enthusiasm for theater life. Yet this burly giant of a man was born a sickly child, not expected to live. Emerging as a healthy child from about eight on he spent a lot of his formative years isolated in a sickbed. Protected through those years by affectionate parents, in what were pretty tough times the young Bram had a lot to overcome. With the memory of those sickly formative years it is small wonder his imagination leaned more towards the macabre and the outre. as an adult he first became a civil servant, then a writer and agent to actors. His most famous client being the legendary stage actor Henry Irving. it was perhaps this relationship which most strongly came to identify him in the public's eyes, even more than that of his life with his wife and children. The nature of celebrity and the publics intrest in it has changed little in the many years since. .His great success in theatrical terms was his time in charge of The Lyceum theater as he took it from a genteel moribund venue to it becoming a genuine world famous theatrical phenomenon. With some of its touring productions dominating the stages of the world.
In this book we are not only treated to a biography of Bram Stoker and Henry Irving ( a nd off course The Count himself) we are also afforded the very compelling insight into the life and career of Hamilton Deane, Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee. As well as a very helpful spotters guide to Gothic Literature. This reader came away from this book with a few truly outre additions to a future reading list.
What a treat this book turned out to be, gifted by my old pal Scratch. Harry Ludlam writes in an easy conversational tone that meanders at times but always in the most charming ways. One could almost feel the chilly midnight wind of Whitby stir the hairs on the back of ones neck and it seemed to whisper; "Just one word of warning, Ladies and Gentlemen, there are such things...."
