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R. M. Renfield is a fictional character and the secondary antagonist of Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula.^[1]

In the novel[link]

A description of Renfield from the novel:

R. M. Renfield, aetat 59. Sanguine temperament, great physical strength, morbidly excitable, periods of gloom, ending in some fixed idea which I cannot make out. I presume that the sanguine temperament itself and the disturbing influence end in a mentally-accomplished finish, a possibly dangerous man, probably dangerous if unselfish. In selfish men, caution is as secure an armour for their foes as for themselves. What I think of on this point is, when self is the fixed point the centripetal force is balanced with the centrifugal. When duty, a cause, etc., is the fixed point, the latter force is paramount, and only accident or a series of accidents can balance it. — From Dr. John Seward's journal

He is an inmate at the lunatic asylum overseen by Dr. John Seward. He suffers from delusions which compel him to eat living creatures in the hope of obtaining their life-force for himself. He starts by consuming flies, then develops a scheme of feeding the flies to spiders, and the spiders to birds, in order to accumulate more and more life. When denied a cat to accommodate the birds, he eats the birds himself. He also changes his ideas to accommodate Mina Harker by quickly eating all flies and stating that it was an old habit. Doctor John Seward diagnoses him as a "zoophagous maniac".

During the course of the novel, he is revealed to be under the influence of Count Dracula. The vampire, whose abilities include control over animals such as rats, bats and spiders, comes to Renfield with an offer: if Renfield worships him, he will provide Renfield with an endless supply of food.

However, when confronted by Mina Harker, the object of Dracula's obsession, Renfield suffers an attack of conscience and begs her to flee from his master's grasp. Renfield is consumed by his desire to keep Mina safe, begging Seward and the others to allow him to leave lest he feel guilty for her fate. When he is denied by Seward, Renfield tells the group of vampire hunters that "[he] warned them!" When Dracula returns that night, Renfield is again seized by his conscience. He remembers hearing that madmen have unnatural strength, and so attempts to fight Dracula. Renfield's strength leaves him after looking into Dracula's eyes, and Dracula throws him to the floor, severely injuring him.

The vampire hunters enter the room shortly afterward, and through an emergency surgery Van Helsing manages to prolong Renfield's life. Renfield tells his story to the vampire hunters who rush to help Mina, and leave him lying on the floor. He lives for only a few moments more before succumbing to his injuries, dying alone.

In other media[link]

Film adaptations of the novel, if they include Renfield, have a tendency to expand his role, making him a long-standing servant of the vampire Count, often depicting his mania as a result of falling under Dracula's influence, rather than as a pre-existing condition that made him vulnerable to it. Tod Browning's 1931 film, for example, conflates the character with that of Jonathan Harker, making Renfield (played by Dwight Frye) the real estate agent who is sent to Transylvania and falls under Dracula's (Bela Lugosi) power. The 1922 silent film Nosferatu presents Alexander Granach as a Renfield similar to that of the novel, but gives him the name Knock, and in a deviation from the novel, survives only to be caught and trapped in prison where he is unable to help Count Orlok, his master, escape the morning sunlight. Nosferatu also differs from the novel in making Knock the real estate agent who employs Harker. This deviation also appears in Nosferatu the Vampyre, the 1979 remake of the 1922 film. Here, Renfield (portrayed by artist-writer Roland Topor) escapes from the asylum after being committed for biting a cow and helps Dracula spread a plague in his town. Whether or not he is re-captured is unknown. In 1966 Hammer film Dracula: Prince of Darkness the character of Renfield played by Thorley Walters is renamed to Ludwig (because the film is set in German-speaking environment).

In Count Dracula, Klaus Kinski (who portrayed a Count Orlok-style Dracula in Nosferatu the Vampyre) played Renfield as mute. Kinski's own Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) has its own Renfield, actor Roland Topor, who, as in the original, is Jonathan Harker's employer who goes insane before Dracula arrives.

The BBC version of Count Dracula (1977), starring Louis Jourdan in the title role, includes Jack Shepherd as a sympathetic Renfield in a prominent role which highlights his relationship with Mina. The 1979 film Dracula, starring Frank Langella in the title role, has Tony Haygarth playing "Milo" Renfield as an unkempt workman who in enthralled by Dracula while he is unloading the boxes as Carfax. Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 film Bram Stoker's Dracula suggests that Renfield (portrayed by Tom Waits) was Harker's predecessor as Count Dracula's agent in London; it is implied that this is the reason for his present madness.

George Hamilton's 1979 Love at First Bite features Arte Johnson as Renfield, who carries around a large array of creatures, including a boa constrictor, for nourishment.

Mel Brooks's 1995 parody Dracula: Dead and Loving It has Peter MacNicol in the role.

Renfield appears as the protagonist in a number of works that provide his backstory or retell the story from his viewpoint. The novels The Book of Renfield by Tim Lucas and Renfield: Slave of Dracula by Barbara Hambly are examples of this, as is Gary Reed's graphic novel Renfield: A Tale of Madness.

In John Marks' novel Fangland, Renfield is re-imagined into a wannabe artiste named Stimson Beevers who communicates with his master via email.

In Charlie Huston's series of novels which form the Joe Pitt Casebooks a 'Renfield' is a disparaging term for a person who likes to hang with or serve the infected vampyres.

References[link]

Bram Stoker
Photograph of Stoker ca. 1906
Born	Abraham Stoker (1847-11-08)8 November 1847 Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland
Died	20 April 1912(1912-04-20) (aged 64) London, England
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	Irish
Citizenship	British
Period	Victorian era, Edwardian Era
Genres	Gothic, Romantic Fiction
Literary movement	Victorian
Notable work(s)	Dracula
Spouse(s)	Florence Balcombe
Children	Irving Noel Thornley Stoker
Relative(s)	father: Abraham Stoker mother: Charlotte Mathilda Blake Thornley
Influences John Polidori, Sheridan Le Fanu
Influenced Stephen King, Anne Rice, Miroslav Šustek
Signature
www.bramstoker.org

Abraham "Bram" Stoker (8 November 1847 – 20 April 1912) was an Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula. During his lifetime, he was better known as personal assistant of actor Henry Irving and business manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London, which Irving owned.

Early life[link]

Stoker was born on 8 November 1847 at 15 Marino Crescent, Clontarf, on the northside of Dublin, Ireland.^[1][2] His parents were Abraham Stoker (1799–1876), from Dublin, and Charlotte Mathilda Blake Thornley (1818–1901), who came from Ballyshannon, County Donegal. Stoker was the third of seven children.^[3] Abraham and Charlotte were members of the Church of Ireland Parish of Clontarf and attended the parish church with their children, who were baptised there.

Stoker was bed-ridden until he started school at the age of seven, when he made a complete recovery. Of this time, Stoker wrote, "I was naturally thoughtful, and the leisure of long illness gave opportunity for many thoughts which were fruitful according to their kind in later years." He was educated in a private school run by the Rev. William Woods.^[4]

After his recovery, he grew up without further major health issues, even excelling as an athlete (he was named University Athlete) at Trinity College, Dublin, which he attended from 1864 to 1870. He graduated with honours in mathematics. He was auditor of the College Historical Society and president of the University Philosophical Society, where his first paper was on "Sensationalism in Fiction and Society".

Early career[link]

Stoker became interested in the theatre while a student through a friend, Dr. Maunsell. He became the theatre critic for the Dublin Evening Mail, co-owned by the author of Gothic tales Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Theatre critics were held in low esteem but he attracted notice by the quality of his reviews. In December 1876 he gave a favourable review of Henry Irving's Hamlet at the Theatre Royal in Dublin. Irving invited Stoker for dinner at the Shelbourne Hotel, where he was staying. They became friends. Stoker also wrote stories, and in 1872 "The Crystal Cup" was published by the London Society, followed by "The Chain of Destiny" in four parts in The Shamrock. In 1876, while a civil servant in Dublin, Stoker wrote a non-fiction book (The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland, published 1879), which remained a standard work .^[4] Furthermore, he possessed an interest in art, and was a founder of the Dublin Sketching Club in 1874.^[5]

Lyceum Theatre and later career[link]

In 1878 Stoker married Florence Balcombe, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel James Balcombe of 1 Marino Crescent. She was a celebrated beauty whose former suitor was Oscar Wilde.^[6] Stoker had known Wilde from his student days, having proposed him for membership of the university’s Philosophical Society while he was president. Wilde was upset at Florence's decision, but Stoker later resumed the acquaintanceship, and after Wilde's fall visited him on the Continent.^[7]

The Stokers moved to London, where Stoker became acting manager and then business manager of Irving's Lyceum Theatre, London, a post he held for 27 years. On 31 December 1879, Bram and Florence's only child was born, a son whom they christened Irving Noel Thornley Stoker. The collaboration with Irving was important for Stoker and through him he became involved in London's high society, where he met James Abbott McNeill Whistler and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (to whom he was distantly related). Working for Irving, the most famous actor of his time, and managing one of the most successful theatres in London made Stoker a notable if busy man. He was dedicated to Irving and his memoirs show he idolised him. In London Stoker also met Hall Caine who became one of his closest friends - he dedicated Dracula to him.

In the course of Irving's tours, Stoker travelled the world, although he never visited Eastern Europe, a setting for his most famous novel. Stoker enjoyed the United States, where Irving was popular. With Irving he was invited twice to the White House, and knew William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Stoker set two of his novels there, using Americans as characters, the most notable being Quincey Morris. He also met one of his literary idols, Walt Whitman.

The first edition cover of Dracula

Writings[link]

While manager for Irving, and secretary and director of London's Lyceum Theatre, he began writing novels beginning with The Snake's Pass in 1890 and Dracula in 1897. During this period, Stoker was part of the literary staff of the London Daily Telegraph and wrote other fiction, including the horror novels The Lady of the Shroud (1909) and The Lair of the White Worm (1911).^[8] In 1906, after Irving's death, he published his life of Irving, which proved successful,^[4] and managed productions at the Prince of Wales Theatre.

Before writing Dracula, Stoker spent several years researching European folklore and mythological stories of vampires. Dracula is an epistolary novel, written as a collection of realistic, but completely fictional, diary entries, telegrams, letters, ship's logs, and newspaper clippings, all of which added a level of detailed realism to his story, a skill he developed as a newspaper writer.

At the time of its publication, Dracula was considered a "straightforward horror novel" based on imaginary creations of supernatural life.^[8] "It gave form to a universal fantasy . . . and became a part of popular culture."^[8]

According to the Encyclopedia of World Biography, Stoker's stories are today included within the categories of "horror fiction," "romanticized Gothic" stories, and "melodrama."^[8] They are classified alongside other "works of popular fiction" such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein^[9]:394 which, according to historian Jules Zanger, also used the "myth-making" and story-telling method of having "multiple narrators" telling the same tale from different perspectives. "'They can't all be lying,' thinks the reader."^[10]

The original 541-page manuscript of Dracula, believed to have been lost, was found in a barn in northwestern Pennsylvania during the early 1980s.^[11] It included the typed manuscript with many corrections, and handwritten on the title page was "THE UN-DEAD." The author's name was shown at the bottom as Bram Stoker. Author Robert Latham notes, "the most famous horror novel ever published, its title changed at the last minute."^[9]. It now is owned by a private art collector, Paul Allen.

Stoker's inspirations for the story, in addition to Whitby, may have included a visit to Slains Castle in Aberdeenshire, a visit to the crypts of St. Michan's Church in Dublin and the novella Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.^[12]

Stoker's original research notes for the novel are kept by the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia, PA. A facsimile edition of the notes was created by Elizabeth Miller and Robert Eighteen-Bisang in 1998.

Death[link]

In Golders Green

After suffering a number of strokes, Stoker died at No. 26 St George's Square on 20 April 1912.^[13] Some biographers attribute the cause of death to tertiary syphilis.^[14] He was cremated, and his ashes placed in a display urn at Golders Green Crematorium. After Irving Noel Stoker's death in 1961, his ashes were added to that urn. The original plan had been to keep his parents' ashes together, but after Florence Stoker's death her ashes were scattered at the Gardens of Rest. To visit his remains at Golders Green, visitors must be escorted to the room the urn is housed in, for fear of vandalism.

Beliefs and philosophy[link]

Stoker was brought up as a Protestant, in the Church of Ireland. He was a strong supporter of the Liberal party. He took a keen interest in Irish affairs^[4] and was what he called a "philosophical home ruler", believing in Home Rule for Ireland brought about by peaceful means - but as an ardent monarchist he believed that Ireland should remain within the British Empire which he believed was a force for good. He was a great admirer of Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone whom he knew personally, and admired his plans for Ireland.^[15]

Stoker had a strong interest in science and medicine and a belief in progress. Some of his novels like The Lady of the Shroud (1909) can be seen as early science fiction.

Stoker had an interest in the occult especially mesmerism, but was also wary of occult fraud and believed strongly that superstition should be replaced by more scientific ideas. In the mid 1890s, Stoker is rumoured to have become a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, though there is no concrete evidence to support this claim.^[16][17][18] One of Stoker's closest friends was J.W. Brodie-Innis, a major figure in the Order, and Stoker himself hired Pamela Coleman Smith, as an artist at the Lyceum Theater.

Posthumous[link]

The short story collection Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories was published in 1914 by Stoker's widow Florence Stoker. The first film adaptation of Dracula was released in 1922 and was named Nosferatu. It was directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and starred Max Schreck as Count Orlock. Nosferatu was produced while Florence Stoker, Bram Stoker's widow and literary executrix, was still alive. Represented by the attorneys of the British Incorporated Society of Authors, she eventually sued the filmmakers. Her chief legal complaint was that she had been neither asked for permission for the adaptation nor paid any royalty. The case dragged on for some years, with Mrs. Stoker demanding the destruction of the negative and all prints of the film. The suit was finally resolved in the widow's favour in July 1925. Some copies of the film survived, however and the film has become well known. The first authorised film version of Dracula did not come about until almost a decade later when Universal Studios released Tod Browning's Dracula starring Bela Lugosi.

Because of the Stokers' frustrating history with Dracula's copyright, a great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker, Canadian writer Dacre Stoker, with encouragement from screenwriter Ian Holt, decided to write "a sequel that bore the Stoker name" to "reestablish creative control over" the original novel. In 2009, Dracula: The Un-Dead was released, written by Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt. Both writers "based [their work] on Bram Stoker's own handwritten notes for characters and plot threads excised from the original edition" along with their own research for the sequel. This also marked Dacre Stoker's writing debut.^[19][20]

In Spring 2012, Dacre Stoker in collaboration with Prof. Elizabeth Miller presented the "lost" Dublin Journal written by Bram Stoker, which had been kept by his great-grandson Noel Dobbs. Stoker's diary entries shed a light on the issues that concerned him before his London years. A remark about a boy who caught flies in a bottle might be a clue for the later development of the Renfield character in Dracula.^[21].

Bibliography[link]

Novels[link]

Bram Stoker Commemorative Plaque, Whitby, England (2002)

• The Primrose Path (1875)
• The Snake's Pass (1890)
• The Watter's Mou' (1895)
• The Shoulder of Shasta (1895)
• Dracula (1897)
• Miss Betty (1898)
• The Mystery of the Sea (1902)
• The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903)
• The Man (aka: The Gates of Life) (1905)
• Lady Athlyne (1908)
• The Lady of the Shroud (1909)
• The Lair of the White Worm (aka: The Garden of Evil) (1911)

Short story collections[link]

• Under the Sunset (1881), comprising eight fairy tales for children.
• Snowbound: The Record of a Theatrical Touring Party (1908)
• Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories (1914)

Uncollected stories[link]

• "The Bridal of Death" (alternate ending to The Jewel of Seven Stars)
• "Buried Treasures"
• "The Chain of Destiny"
• "The Crystal Cup"
• "The Dualitists; or, The Death Doom of the Double Born"
• "Lord Castleton Explains" (chapter 10 of The Fate of Fenella)
• "The Gombeen Man" (chapter 3 of The Snake's Pass)
• "In the Valley of the Shadow"
• "The Man from Shorrox"
• "Midnight Tales"
• "The Red Stockade"
• "The Seer" (chapters 1 and 2 of The Mystery of the Sea)

Non-fiction[link]

• The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland (1879)
• A Glimpse of America (1886)
• Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving (1906)
• Famous Impostors (1910)
• Bram Stoker's Notes for Dracula: A Facsimile Edition (2008) Bram Stoker Annotated and Transcribed by Robert Eighteen-Bisang and Elizabeth Miller, Foreword by Michael Barsanti. Jefferson NC & London: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-3410-7

Critical works on Stoker[link]

• William Hughes, Beyond Dracula (Palgrave, 2000) ISBN 0-312-23136-9 ^[22]

• Belford, Barbara. Bram Stoker. A Biography of the Author of Dracula. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1996.

References and notes[link]