by Bram Stoker
1. Irving… Faust: Mephistopheles was one of Henry Irving’s most celebrated roles and Faust the Lyceum Company’s greatest success. Written by William Gorman Wills, Faust opened on 19 December 1885 and was performed 792 times.
2. Methuselah… Yurrup: Cf. Genesis 5:27: ‘Thus all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years; and he died.’ Methuselah is thus used as a means by which to ascribe great age. Yurrup: Europe (slang).
3. the Burg: A fortress or walled town of early or medieval times.
4. Claude Lorraine: The artist Claude Gené (1604–82) was better known as Lorraine after the place of his birth. Chiefly concerned with the picturesque, Lorraine often depicted romantic old castles or ruins set against the rough textures of wild nature.
5. the Torture Tower: Nuremberg’s Max Tower was the location of the offices of the Nuremberg Inquisition during the period when Duke Albert V of Bavaria (1550–79) attempted the forcible restoration of Roman Catholicism. The Iron Virgin was the final destination of those prisoners who refused to recant their heretical beliefs.
6. tender as a Maine cherry-tree: The American north-eastern state of Maine is famous for its fruit orchards, particularly blueberries and apples. Possibly Stoker is here referring to the native Pin Cherry (Prunus pensylvanica), a rapidly growing cherry tree with soft and light wood, most commonly used as a grafting and budding stock for the sour cherry.
7. the Gothic restorers of forty years ago: In the late eighteenth century there was a revival of Gothic styles of architecture, with the emphasis on a romantic interest in the medieval. This was followed in the nineteenth century by a more scholarly style of Gothic, the architectural proponents of which included A. W. Pugin (1812–52) and Gilbert Scott (1811–78). The widespread adoption of the Gothic style transformed the appearance of English towns and cities. Buildings of this later style of Gothic architecture include the Palace of Westminster and St Pancras Station, London.
8. the Pantheistic souls of Philo or Spinoza: Pantheism is the philosophy that God is immanent in or identical with the universe. Philo Judaeus (c.25 BC – AD c.50), a Hellenized Jewish philosopher, was born in Alexandria, Egypt. Born in Amsterdam to Sephardic Jews, Benedict De Spinoza (1632–77) is best known for his five books of Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata (1677), which worked towards the conclusion that ‘God’ and ‘Nature’ are two names for the same reality that underlies the universe, of which all lesser entities are made.
9. implements of torture… to man: Stoker may have gained inspiration for his descriptions of the instruments of torture from James A. Wylie’s The History of Protestantism (1874–7), which contains a chapter on the Inquisition of Nuremberg and the methods of torture used.
10. a rude birthmark… Nurnberg Virgin: Stoker was much taken with the notion that birthmarks were either a direct result of ‘maternal impression’ (the representation of an event experienced by a mother during pregnancy) or a physical manifestation of a past-life memory, often corresponding to a fatal wound from that life. In The Jewel of Seven Stars Margaret Trelawny’s birthmark on her wrist replicates the wound-line of Queen Tera’s severed hand. Margaret herself, it is later revealed, is the reincarnation of Tera.
11. Montana Territory: Montana lies in the north-west of the United States. It was first explored by white colonizers in the early nineteenth century, eventually becoming a state in its own right in 1889. Gold was discovered there in the late 1850s, and in 1876 it was the scene of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, in which the Sioux and Cheyenne famously defeated the United States’ army: it is perhaps to these conflicts between white settlers and Native Americans that Hutcheson is referring.
12. Idaho territory: Bordered on its eastern side by Montana, Idaho experienced similar events subsequent to its settlement by white colonials, including the mid-nineteenth-century gold rush and Native American uprisings. Idaho became a state in its own right in 1890.
13. Wapping: Wapping’s proximity to the sea gave it a strong maritime character for centuries. Located on the north bank of the Thames, to the east of London, it was the site of ‘Execution Dock’, where pirates and other water-borne criminals faced execution by hanging from a gibbet constructed close to the low water mark. Bodies were left hanging until they had been submerged three times by the tide.
14. euchered: In the nineteenth century the trick-taking card game euchre was highly popular in the United States. To be ‘euchered’ thus implies being outwitted, tricked or deceived.
THE SECRET OF THE GROWING GOLD
Bram Stoker explored the Zermatt valley in southern Switzerland on a visit to his parents, who had emigrated to the continent in the summer of 1872. The story’s fatal climax may have been inspired by Stoker’s familiarity with the macabre tale of the exhumation of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s wife, Elizabeth Siddal. Although Siddal was disinterred seven years after her death, when the coffin was opened it was said that her hair was still golden and growing.
1. the causes of decadence… plebeian forms: In Stoker’s stories the threat to middle-class stability emanates both from the aristocracy and the lower classes. Stoker here makes reference to the fin-de-siècle theory of Degeneration, notably expounded in Max Nordau’s Degeneration (1892), which held that certain supposed retrograde changes in the social and cultural fabric were symptomatic of a wholesale deterioration of the human race. Stoker’s concern for the racial deterioration of England’s stock is countered in his novels by an assertive promotion of national regeneration through hybridization. In The Lair of the White Worm, for example, the half-Australian Adam Salton marries the half-Burmese Mimi Watford.
2. splenetic humour: In ancient and medieval philosophy it was believed the body was composed of four fluids, or humours: blood, phlegm, choler and melancholy, or black choler. The relative mental qualities and dispositions of a person were determined by the proportion of these humours in the body. Black choler was held to be secreted by the spleen and associated with a melancholic or irritable nature.
3. lime: Apart from being a building material, in its most pure form (which is also known as quicklime) lime was widely used to dispose of corpses in mass graves, due to its highly corrosive alkalinity.
A GIPSY PROPHECY
1. La Tour: Château-Latour is situated in the Médoc region of France, near Bordeaux. A creator of high-quality wine, it is one of the only five châteaux in the region to be classified as a ‘premier grand cru classé’ – a prestigious position in the French wine-growing industry.
2. the young barrister: Stoker himself was called to the bar on 30 April 1890, although he never practised as a lawyer.
3. Mendelssohn: The German composer Felix Mendelssohn (1809– 47) is probably most popularly recognized for his ‘Wedding March’ from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1826).
4. Bohemia: An historical region in central Europe, Bohemia was an independent kingdom until 1743, when it was annexed into the Hapsburg Empire. After the First World War Bohemia became the cornerstone of the newly formed country of Czechoslovakia. It now occupies the western and middle thirds of the Czech Republic.
5. Madame Tussaud’s: Born Marie Grosholtz, Madame Tussaud (1761–1850) established her first permanent wax museum on Baker Street in 1835. It was later moved to its current location on Marylebone Road in 1884.
6. Ghourka knife… the mutiny: Part of the regimental weaponry and heraldry of Ghurkha fighters, the Kukri or Khukuri is a heavy, curved Nepalese knife used as both a tool and a weapon. The 1857 mutiny by the Indian army led to civil and military insurrections throughout northern and central India against British Imperial authority. Although order was restored by 1858, the upheaval enabled the British to impose direct rule (the British Raj) on the Indian subcontinent until 1947.
THE COMING OF ABEL BEHENNA
In 1892 Stoker holidayed in the small fishing village of Boscastle on the west coast of Cornwall, which he had discovered earlier that year on a walking tour. A medieval harbour village in the folds of high stee
p cliffs situated between Tintagel and Bude, Boscastle was a working port up until the end of the nineteenth century and the arrival of the railway at nearby Camelford. Both Boscastle’s location and its blowhole, Devil’s Bellows, served as inspiration for Stoker’s fictional village of Pencastle.
1. yellow-hammer: The male yellow-hammer bird has a bright yellow head, a yellow underbelly and a heavily streaked brown back.
2. stonecrop: The common name of Sedum acre, a herb with bright yellow flowers and small cylindrical fleshy sessile leaves, which grows in masses on rocks, old walls, etc.
3. Phoenician… Norseman: An ancient civilization in the north notes of ancient Canaan, central Phoenicia lay along the coastal plain of what is now Lebanon and Syria. The Phoenicians were an enterprising maritime people, and their trading culture spread right across the Mediterranean Sea and beyond during the first millennium bc. ‘Norseman’ was a name for the native people of ancient or medieval Scandinavia, including the Vikings.
4. cast sheep’s eyes: To look lovingly, amorously or longingly.
5. Damon… Pythias: In Greek mythology, the legend of Damon and Pythias symbolizes trust, loyalty and true friendship. Pythias was accused of plotting against the tyrant of Syracuse, Dionysius I, and sentenced to death. Damon was allowed to stand bail for his friend, who wished to return home to say farewell to his family, under the condition that if Pythias did not return Damon would be executed in his place. Both were saved from execution when Pythias eventually returned to Syracuse, thus overwhelming Dionysius with his display of loyalty to his friend.
6. the wreckers’ fire basket: Cornwall’s rugged coastline was a haven for wreckers and smugglers, whose activities reached a peak in the eighteenth century. Booty from shipwrecked vessels was often considered fair game by local inhabitants, whilst more sinister wreckers actively lured ships to their destruction with false lights.
7. Pahang… Chersonese: Although ‘chersonese’ technically indicates any peninsula, Stoker seems to be referring to the Malay Peninsula at the southern extremity of the Asian continent lying between the Andaman Sea of the Indian Ocean and the Strait of Malacca on the west, and the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea on the east. The important British role on the peninsula began with the founding of settlements at Pinang (1786) and Singapore (1819). Located in the east coast region of the peninsula, Pahang is the Malay Peninsula’s largest state.
8. the old Berserker fury: Berserkers (or Berserks) were Norse warriors who had sworn allegiance to Odin, the god of war, and who worked themselves into a murderous fury before a battle. In Dracula, Chapter XI, the wolf that escapes from London Zoo is named Bersicker.
9. a ‘ketch’… only a jib: A ketch is a sailing craft with two masts (main and mizzen) whilst a jib is the triangular stay-sail that is set ahead of the foremost mast.
10. the hatred of Cain: The first-born of Adam and Eve, Cain killed his younger brother, Abel, in jealousy of God’s preference for him. Cain was subsequently cursed by God and became a fugitive wanderer.
11. Canton: Officially renamed Guangzhou in 1918, the city of Canton lies toward the south of China’s coast, approximately 180 kilometres north-west of Hong Kong.
THE BURIAL OF THE RATS
Bram Stoker visited Paris in 1875, staying with his close friend the actress Geneviève Ward and her mother. Following a letter in which Stoker professed admiration for a ‘Miss Henry’ (possibly Geneviève Ward herself), his father wrote back advising against forming close acquaintanceship with actresses. The narrator’s ‘forbidden love’ for a girl may well be a reference to Stoker’s father’s disapproval.
1. Enceinte: A fortification enclosing a fortress or town.
2. ad absurdum… devil fish: Ad absurdum: literally ‘to the absurd’ (Latin). A devil fish is an octopus, cuttle-fish, or other cephalopod.
3. Messrs Cook or Gaze: Thomas Cook (1808–92) founded his travel business in the mid nineteenth century. Henry Gaze’s company was Cook’s closest rival travel agent operator. Henry Gaze & Sons travel agency went bankrupt in 1903, whilst Thomas Cook’s empire still operates to the present day.
4. chiffonier: Rag picker. The rag pickers of Paris were traditionally despised and marginalized as the lowest caste, subjected to social exclusion and held responsible for the ills of society, including epidemics, thefts and urban insecurity in general. Relegated to areas outside the city walls, they were nevertheless organized into a hierarchical, disciplined system. At the bottom was the night ‘collector’ who did not have his own patch or tools and roamed over a wide area; the ‘runner’ was equipped with a basket, a lantern and a hook to sift through refuse; the ‘placer’ had his own patch and had first pick of the refuse in that area. At the top of the social scale were the master rag pickers, genuine merchants with storage sheds and weighing scales.
5. Napoleon… Baron Hausseman: Under the orders of Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (1808–73) and the direction of civic planner Georges-Eugène, Baron Haussmann (1809–91), Paris was largely redesigned and redeveloped. Large sections of the city were razed and the old narrow streets replaced with broad avenues with the intent of allowing both cavalry and cannon easy access, and also of reducing the ability of future revolutionaries to challenge the government.
6. ‘hope deferred maketh the heart sick’: Cf. Proverbs 13:12: ‘Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.’
7. Ultima Thule: The highest or uttermost point or degree attained or attainable (Latin).
8. Bog of Allan: A large peat bog in the centre of Ireland. The Bog of Allen, as it is usually known, features prominently in Stoker’s first novel, The Snake’s Pass (1890).
9. Charles VII… Henry II: Charles VII of France (1403–61); Henry II of France (1519–59).
10. First Republic: The French people proclaimed the country’s First Republic and the abolition of the monarchy on 21 September 1792 as a result of the French Revolution (1789–99), itself triggered by the storming of the Bastille prison, a potent symbol of autocratic cruelty, by the people of Paris. This presaged a new era of republican governments in Europe.
11. mauvais sujet… absinthe: A mauvais sujet (French) is a worthless person, a bad lot. Allegedly invented in 1797 by Dr Pierre Ordinaire, absinthe was originally distilled from wine mixed with wormwood and typically contains between 45 and 85 per cent alcohol. A feature of the bohemian lifestyle in the latter decades of the nineteenth century, la fée verte (the green fairy), as it became commonly known, found particularly fashionable status in France, until its prohibition in 1915. Vincent Van Gogh (1853–90), Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864 – 1901), and Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) were among the drink’s devotees.
12. Dutch roll: A roll in ice-skating, executed by gliding with the feet parallel and pressing alternately on the edges of each foot.
13. the ceteuces… in the revolution: Synonymous with the French Revolution, the guillotine was the favoured execution method of insurgents. A quick, reliable and ‘entertaining’ means of disposing of adversaries, it became the only legal execution method in France until the abolition of the death penalty in 1981. The image of women avidly witnessing and celebrating such executions, particularly the infamous ‘tricoteuses’ (‘ceteuces’ is most likely Stoker’s misspelling) who would knit at the foot of the guillotine, was regarded with horror by contemporary reporters who condemned them as unnatural examples of their sex.
14. ‘Oh! To see or hear her singing! Scarce I know which is the divinest’: Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61), ‘Lady Geraldine’s Courtship: A Romance of the Age’ (1844), ‘Oh, to see or hear her singing! Scarce I know which is divinest’, line 173.
15. the rabble: Horror of mob violence is a recurrent theme in the Gothic genre, from the vengeful, mindless mob that tears apart the prioress in Matthew Lewis’s The Monk (1796) to James Whale’s film version of Frankenstein (1931) in which a hollering throng sets fire to the windmill in which the monster is trapped.
> 16. bridge of Arcola… Old Guard at Waterloo: The Battle of Arcola (15–17 November 1796) was notable for Napoleon Bonaparte grabbing a flag and personally leading an assault across the Arcola bridge. At the Battle of Waterloo (18 June 1815), the Old Guard fought to the end to enable the Emperor Napoleon to escape from the battlefield as the Allied troops closed in. General Cambronne is reputed to have answered a call to surrender with the words ‘The Guard dies but does not surrender.’
17. Hobson’s choice: An apparently free choice that is really no choice at all.
A DREAM OF RED HANDS
1. a flaming sword: According to the Bible, a Cherub with a rotating flaming sword was placed by God at the gates of Paradise after Adam and Eve were banished from it (Genesis 3:24).
2. a soul is typified by a butterfly: Many ancient civilizations believed that butterflies were symbols of the human soul. The Greek goddess Psyche, for example, the personification of the human soul, was often represented in the shape of a butterfly, and the Greek word Psykhē can be translated either ‘soul’ or ‘butterfly’.
CROOKEN SANDS
In the 1890s Bram Stoker took numerous holidays to the Scottish east-coast village of Cruden Bay. The village itself was overlooked by Slaines Castle, ancestral home of the Errolls, from where it was said the elderly nineteenth Earl was in the habit of walking around Cruden Bay in a tweed suit of antique cut and high Glengarry bonnet with the family’s falcon crest pinned upon it. Certainly, the story lampoons the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries’ nostalgic romanticizing of a powerful yet largely inchoate idea of Celticism.
1. the Goodwins: The Goodwin sands, a stretch of shoals and sandbars about fifteen kilometres long, lie off the east coast of Kent. They are a notorious hazard to shipping and are littered with wrecks.
2. Copthall-court: Copthall Court lies near to the Bank of England and the Stock Exchange in central London.
