Once again, in honor of Halloween approaching… we give you, courtesy of poetryanimations, Irish author Bram Stoker reading from his great novel “Dracula” first published in 1897.
It was first published as a hardcover in 1897 by Archibald Constable and Co.
The excellent virtual recitation is provided by the very talented American voice artist LordJazor who has a very interesting youtube channel where you can hear a longer segment of his reading of Dracula.
On April 20th in 1912, renowned Irish author, Bram Stoker died from exhaustion at the age of 64. He had suffered a number of strokes prior to his death, which may have been a result of tertiary syphilis.
Naturally, Mr. Stoker is best remembered for his gothic masterpiece, Dracula. However, we really must recommend that if you haven’t already, you sprint out to your local library and poke around for his first novel, The Primrose Path, published in 1875; twenty two years before Dracula! While this particular novel is nowhere near supernatural, we feel it is remarkably well written for a premier novel and his descriptions of setting are just so beautifully precise. It’s always fun to read a now renowned author’s work when they were but a fledgling.
Among his other works, you will find he wrote quite a few novels- none of which ever became as popular as Dracula, a plethora of short stories ( some published posthumously) and quite a few nonfiction works such as A Glimpse of America in 1886 and Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving , published in 1906.
Dracula is generally regarded as the culmination of the Gothic (style of the twelfth to fifteenth centuries) vampire story, preceded earlier in the nineteenth century by William Polidori’s The Vampyre, Thomas Prest’s Varney the Vampyre, J. S. Le Fanu’s Carmilla, and Guy de Maupassant’s Le Horla. The narrative, comprising journal entries, letters, newspaper clippings, a ship’s log, and phonograph recordings, allowed Stoker to contrast his character’s actions with their own analysis of their acts.
Some critics today, attempt to criticize Stoker’s Dracula as being tediously grotesque or purposely “overtly shocking”, but we do not think any of these critics could deny the immense impact it has had on popular culture. Even today, Dracula remains a very ominous name in our media, literature, and collective subconscious.
Today- we want you to SHOCK your readers! Stoker was willing to SHOCK his prim and proper audience… so, why not you? Throw your characters into the most shocking set of circumstances your wicked minds can conjure up!
Write on in peace, Mr. Stoker!
HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY FROM DWC! ;)
Today, we think it only fitting to pay our respects to some of Ireland’s great dead writers in honor of St. Patrick’s Day! Have you ever noticed how many literary giants have come from Ireland?! Maybe it’s the haunting ebb and flow of the Irish Sea or the wonderfully rich history; both bloody and beautiful. Whatever it is, it has influenced writers for centuries and we are all the better for it.
So, without further ado, we salute:
William Congreve, Francis Bacon, Edmund Burke, Frank O’Connor, Jonathan Swift, John O’Keefe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, C.S. Lewis, Elizabeth Bowen, Oliver Goldsmith, Samuel Beckett, Bram Stoker, George Bernard Shaw, William Butler Yeats, Maria Edgeworth, Lord Dunsany, Oscar Wilde and countless others!
Today, pour yourself a pint, tuck into some corned beef and cabbage, sit back and enjoy one of these brilliant writers… and don’t forget to wear green!
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