Read Online Who Was Dracula? by Jim Steinmeyer - Free Book Online

avoided responding and Irving politely refused; it was not a Lyceum production.
    Wilde was more cautious—with Victorian social graces—in approaching the Stokers, remembering the awkward situations from their Dublin days. During
Othello
in 1881, when Irving and Edwin Booth alternated the roles of Othello and Iago, Wilde was drawn to the Lyceum. Newspapers observed him greeting friends in the box, leaning over to shake hands with admirers in the stalls, and talking with Bram Stoker in the lobby. If any awkwardness remained, it was evidenced in Bram, circling cautiously. For a while, he could still imagine himself as an equal to Wilde—a Trinity man with a writing career, who had fixed the theater in his sights—but Wilde’s successes had already eclipsed his.
    â€”
    Bram spent most vacations with the family, writing. He had never abandoned his literary career; he simply moved it to the side burner when Irving’s needs at the Lyceum glowed red-hot. After
The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland
, Stoker produced an array of titles.
Under the Sunset
, published in 1882, was a collection of dark, enchanted stories inspired, in part, by his mother’s recollections of the Irish cholera famine. The book consists of fairy tales within a fairy tale—the fables gathered from a mysterious land, which exists only in dreams. It was dedicated to his son. A rumor among the Lyceum staff suggested that Stoker had paid 700 pounds ($3,500) to have the book printed; in other words,
Under the Sunset
was a vanity publication.
    His following books included more traditional adventure novels:
The Snake’s Pass, The Watter’s Mou’
, and
The Shoulder of Shasta
. Modern critics feel that these works were hurriedly produced during Stoker’s time away from the theater, primarily diversions from his work. Their romantic situations or adventurous spirit are in keeping with popular novels of the day, or the dramatic scripts for melodramas that were a part of Stoker’s daily work.
The Snake’s Pass
is set in Ireland.
The Watter’s
Mou’
uses Cruden Bay, Scotland, inspired by one of his vacations there.
The Shoulder of Shasta
is set in the American West for its exotic locale, after one of Stoker’s American tours with Henry Irving.
    The novels received mixed reviews. For example, the
Athenaeum
, a literary magazine, criticized the dialogue in
The
Watter’s Mou’
, suggesting that stilted phrases were better “adapted for the Adelphi stage than for a discussion between two Scotch lovers.” That Adelphi remark would have been cutting to Stoker; the Adelphi had been infamous for cheap, “blood-and-thunder” melodramas, unlike Irving’s more refined fare. Stoker was at his best describing local color, although—not surprisingly for a man who dealt with scripts—this sometimes turned into dialogue written in dialect: Irish, Scottish, American. Some critics found it all tedious and unnecessary.
    The Shoulder of Shasta
was also snubbed. “This story will not increase his literary reputation nor appeal to many readers. . . . This want of maturity and a sense of humor may be due to haste, for the book bears the stamp of being roughly and carelessly put together. Mr. Stoker can probably do much better than this,” the
Athenaeum
concluded.
    If the books were carelessly dashed off, it may be that Stoker was busy with his career. He trained for four years to become a barrister (a trial lawyer) and was called to the bar in April 1890. He never practiced law or tried a case. Perhaps he was readying himself for the time when he would no longer be working for Irving, or indeed, perhaps he felt a need to raise his status with Irving.
    â€”
    Voice recordings survive of Ellen Terry reciting “The quality of mercy” from
The Merchant of Venice
and Henry Irving performing “Now is the winter of our discontent” from
Richard III
.