Bram Stoker

[Calenture]

The original Bram Stoker thread has more members' posts than I can copy over easily (hint hint), so I've just lifted these two - my synopses and Dem's comments at the end.

Here's a link to the original in case anyone wants to check if there's anything they want to transfer:
click here.

Dracula's Guest: Originally the second chapter of Dracula, excised before publication, this little episode has Jonathan Harker taking an afternoon's ride from the inn where he has put up, en route to Dracula's castle. The inn-keeper warns the driver not to be late returning, as this is Walpurgis Night, when devils and demons are abroad. Passing a side road leading down
into an attractive valley, Harker asks the driver to take that path; but the driver refuses, speaking of an abandoned village and a cemetery where a suicide lies buried. Finally Harker decides to investigate by himself on foot. Hours later, a storm bursts and Harker seeks shelter in the doorway of a vast marble tomb with a great iron spike driven into it. As he leans against the door it opens, and within he sees the shape of a beautiful woman lying in a bier, cheeks and lips flushed red. Enjoyable and atmospheric. This story also introduces an army officer who later appears in Dracula, but now without any introduction.

The Judge's House: Malcomson needs to study for some exams, so deliberately takes himself to a place as off the beaten track as he can find, the village of Benchurch. Here he finds a house which entirely suits his purposes, with high windows and a high surrounding wall, which render it free from distractions. He learns that the house has not in fact been let in over fifty years, and that once it was the home of a judge with a reputation for peculiar vindictiveness towards those sent before him at the assizes. Mrs Witham, the landlady of the local inn, is aghast when she learns Malcomson intends to stay there; but Mrs Dempster, who agrees to come in and 'do' for him, expresses the opinion that 'rats is bogies, and bogies is rats'. And certainly there are rather a lot of rats in the wainscoting, although they do not trouble Malcomson unduly; he grows quite accustomed to them - except that one giant rat which appears late each night in the chair close by the fire.

The Secret of the Growing Gold: Wyckam Delandre and his sister Margaret, noted for her beautiful golden hair, have a furious row, and shortly after Margaret goes to live at Brent's Rock with Geoffrey Brent. Whether the two are married becomes a matter for gossip and scandal - as do the frequent violent quarrels between them. Then Geoffrey returns alone from holiday in a mountainous part of Europe. There has been a tragic accident, Margaret is dead, her body lost. A year later Geoffrey finds a new wife in Italy and brings her back to his home. But he is disturbed by the curious manifestation of gold strands growing through the floor of the great hall. This story was inspired by the oft-told tale of how Rossetti nestled a copy of his unpublished poems in the bronze hair of his dead wife Lizzie Siddal before her burial at Highgate Cemetery, then seven years later ordered an exhumation to recover the poems. When the coffin was opened Lizzie's hair was still found to be golden and growing. The story is noteable for its sombre and obsessive Poe-like qualities, and its ghoulish conclusion.

A Gypsy Prophecy: Joshua and Mary Considine are very much in love, so he is alarmed when, visiting a gypsy camp with his friend Dr Burleigh, to have his fortune told for a joke, the gypsy tells him that his are a murderer's hands, and that if he loves his wife, he will never go back to her, for the gipsy sees him standing over her dead body with her blood upon his hands.

The Coming of Abel Behenna: Living in cottages on either side of Cornish river close to the sea, two young men, close friends since boyhood, compete for the hand of the same girl, Sarah Trefusis. Unable to choose between them, Sarah agrees that the winner of a coin-toss shall take all the money of both men and use it for trade, to come back to her the richer one year from that day. But if the winner of the toss fails to return by that date, then he loses all claim to her. Predictable but well-told, this one is notable for one particularly eerie scene as a woman standing on the cliffs looks down to see what appears to be "a pig with the entrails out" moving along the ocean floor.

The Burial of the Rats: A young Englishman in Paris explores the poorer quarters and discovers the "City of Dust," where the chiffoniers or rag-pickers eke out a squalid existence. The story is too drawn-out to be completely successful, but the first half with its desciption of the squalid city of dust mountains, shacks and watchful denizens is suspenseful and creepy, especially the conversation between the young man and the elderly woman in a three-sided shack through whose loose boards he becomes aware eyes are watching. Roger Corman has filmed this story sometime during 1997, but no word yet on the film.

A Dream of Red Hands: Jacob Settle is a kindly man who lives a hermit-like existence in a hut in the middle of a moor. The narrator strikes up a friendship with him, and becomes concerned when he realises he is suffering from some illness. In fact Jacob has a reccurring dream; and when it will not end, he tells his friend its origin. Long ago he had killed a man, and although the man deserved killing, he now dreams each night that he is forbidden to enter the gates of heaven because of his unclean bloodstained hands.

Crooken Sands: Mr Markham takes the Red House above Crooken Bay, on the Scottish coast. To the embarrassment of his wife and children he insists on wearing the elaborate garb of a Highland clan chieftain for all of his stay in Scotland. He would like the company of his family on his walks, but unnacountably they all have sick headaches. None of the local people seem inclined to strike up a conversation, except Salt Tammie, an eccentric who spends most of his time looking out to sea and prophesies that Markham will pay for his vanity, when he sees himself "face to face" and the sand of Crooken will open and swallow him up.

Difficult to pick a favourite from this collection; most have some curious appeal or leave a lingering memory, even if the stories are sometimes a little tired. Dracula's Guest, The Growing Gold, The Squaw and The Burial of the Rats are probably the best four. The book's ideal bedtime reading.

demonik:
That's the problem with Stoker's short stories. Add The Judge's House and maybe The Watter's Mou' and Crooken Sands to the four you single out and that's it, game over as far as I'm concerned. However you shuffle the rest, they always read like filler. If you've got one of the several reissues of Dracula's Guest you probably don't need either Midnight Tales or Charles Osbourne's Bram Stoker Bedside Companion unless you're an out-and-out Stoker devotee.

[dem]

Charles Osborne (ed.) - The Bram Stoker Bedside Companion: Ten Stories By The Author Of Dracula (Gollancz, 1973: Quartet, 1974)

Introduction: Bram Stoker And His Work - Charles Osborne

The Secret Of The Growing Gold
Dracula's Guest
The Invisible Giant
The Judge's House
The Burial Of The Rats
A Star Trap
The Squaw
Crooken Sands
The Gombeen Man
The Watters Mou'


A souped up version of Stoker's Dracula's Guest collection (Rider & Haggard, 1914). His best stories The Judges House, Dracula's Guest, The Squaw are much-anthologised and you've probably come across The Burial Of The Rats and The Secret Of The Growing Gold (possibly inspired by Rossetti's exhumation of Elizabeth Siddal when he decided he would rather like his unpublished poems back after all?) elsewhere too. One that didn't make Dracula's Guest is the rather good 50 page macabre smuggling epic The Watters Mou'. Great in their own right, The Judge's House and Dracula's Guest reveal his immense debt to Le Fanu.

[lobolover]

The Invisible Giant IS a nice story-surprised no one mentioned it yet.

So the ones I should look for are ?

[Calenture]

Aug 30, 2008 9:25:50 GMT lobolover said:

The Invisible Giant IS a nice story-surprised no one mentioned it yet.

That one isn't in my copy of Dracula's Guest. Thanks for drawing my attention to it. I don't seem to have A Star Trap, The Gombeeb Man, or Watter's Mou', either.

[lobolover]

The invisible giant comes from a phantasy colection of Stoker, very early work,that seems much closer to what ive read of Forster's "The celestial omnibus"-id like to go through that too-had some interesting titles.

[thecoffinflies]

Which is the story about the twin boys, that ends with the multiple murders in the barn?

Anyone know? I got it out of the library years ago...in fact, I remember it being just called The Twins...

[dem]

Would that be The Dualists? Peter Haining resurrected it for Bram Stoker: Midnight Tales (Peter Owen, 1990)

Foreword: The Midnight Side - Christopher Lee
Introduction - Peter Haining

The Dream in the Dead House (Dracula's Guest)
The Spectre of Doom
The Dualitists
Death in the Wings
The Gombeen Man
The Squaw
A Deed of Vengeance?
The Man from Shorrox’
The Red Stockade
Midnight Tales - The Funeral Party: The Shakespeare Mystery: A Deal with the Devil
A Criminal Star
The Bridal of Death

Thanks to severance for posting these details of yet another Haining/ Stoker collaboration:

Peter Haining (ed.) - Shades Of Dracula: The Uncollected Stories Of Bram Stoker (William Kimber, 1982)

ionicus

The Crystal Cup
The Chain of Destiny
The Castle of the King
The Fate of Fenella
Vampires in New England
Walpurgis Night
The Seer
Another Dracula
At Last
In the Valley of the Shadow

The Fate of Fenella is written by Stoker and is one of 24 chapters from a mystery novel written by 24 authors of the day. Fate of Fenella is about 7 1/2 pages long.
Vampires in New England reprints an 1896 article from the New York World newspaper which was found among Stoker's personal effects in 1970, this article is 5 pages long, it is uncredited and is not by Stoker, but clearly an early influence on the genesis of Dracula.
Walpurgis Night originally appeared in May 1914 The Story-Teller and is the original title for Dracula's Guest.
Another Dracula is written by Ralph Milne Farley who claims to have met Stoker on a number of occasions, Farley was smitten with Dracula and claims to have encouraged Stoker to write a sequel which would take Dracula to the United States, of course, Stoker never got around to writing that, but Farley did, his story Another Dracula originally appeared in Weird Tales. Farley's story is about 50 pages long.

**************************

Since has own thread Shades of Dracula

[thecoffinflies]

Yes! That'll be it!

good stuff. thanksx

[lemming13]

Just finished a re-read of Dracula's Guest and enjoyed it greatly, except for Stoker's bloody awful Americans. I was going to top it off with Jewel of Seven Stars or Lair of the White Worm, but now I think I'll be hunting down The Invisible Giant and The Dualists. Don't recall reading either, though chances are I have at some point. A bad memory is a boon sometimes, though - even tired old tales become fresh when you've forgotten them.

[dem]

Mar 1, 2011 10:12:57 GMT lemming13 said:

.... now I think I'll be hunting down The Invisible Giant and The Dualists. Don't recall reading either, though chances are I have at some point. A bad memory is a boon sometimes, though - even tired old tales become fresh when you've forgotten them.

It is, too! The vast majority of the stuff I've raved about on here - "the final chapter will stay with me to the grave", etc., - translates as "the final chapter has stayed with me for roughly as long as it's taken to hack out these inane comments on same, now lets over-enthuse about some other old garbage." This is not such a bad thing at all. Lord P.'s recent review of M. P. Dare's Unholy Relics reminded me of how much I adored Dare's bizarre, somewhat misogynistic takes on M. R. James on first reading, but damned if I could tell you a thing about The Demoniac Goat or the title story these days. What else to do but go back and rediscover them after a few years when, with luck, they'll be just as fresh and exciting, and it will be like having a brand new book.

[Dr Strange]

Thought you'd like to see this pic of the cover of the first edition of Dracula's Guest (1914) -

www.bramstoker.org/stories/covers/03guestbc.html

[Craig Herbertson]

Mar 1, 2011 12:12:15 GMT Dr Strange said:

Thought you'd like to see this pic of the cover of the first edition of Dracula's Guest (1914) -

www.bramstoker.org/stories/covers/03guestbc.html

You were right. that's a cracker.

[jamesdoig]

Mar 1, 2011 10:12:57 GMT lemming13 said:

now I think I'll be hunting down The Invisible Giant and The Dualists.

Do you mean "The Dualitists"? Tragara Press produced an edition of that story in the 1980s, now long out of print. There's a copy in John Eggeling's latest catalogue for 45 quid - a "forgotten" story reprinted from The Theatre Annual For 1887 and described as Stoker's "most bizarre and horrific tale." Surely it must be in an anthology somewhere?

[cw67q]

I would like to say that I identify entirely with what dem wrote a few posts back. At least I think I agree entirely. I can remember reading it and nodding my head, but I'm afraid I can't remember the details now. For all I know I was shaking my head at the start. But I'm pretty sure I identified with the last part where he say, er something that I agreed with.

- Chris (more serious than joking, I'm genuinely glad that I'm not the only one like this)

[lemming13]

It IS Dualitists, james, thanks; tracked both down online. The Invisible Giant didn't really do much for me; I know it's a fairytale, but it was too long for the material and I suspect most children reading it were unimpressed. But the Dualitists, despite some excessively fruity language, is a genuinely nasty, nasty piece, with a most un-Victorian ending. Now THAT one should get anthologised much more often.