F. W. Murnau
F.W. Murnau before 1931
Born	Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe (1888-12-28)December 28, 1888 Bielefeld, Germany
Died	March 11, 1931(1931-03-11) (aged 42) Santa Barbara, California, U.S.
Occupation	Film director
Years active	1919—1931
Height	6'11 (2.10 m)

Friedrich Wilhelm "F. W." Murnau (born Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe, December 28, 1888 – March 11, 1931) was one of the most influential German film directors of the silent era, and a prominent figure in the expressionist movement in German cinema during the 1920s. Although some of Murnau's films have been lost, most still survive.

Early years[link]

He was born in Bielefeld, Province of Westphalia. He attended the University of Heidelberg and studied art history. He took the name "Murnau" from the town in Germany named Murnau am Staffelsee. Openly gay, the 6'11 (210 cm) director was said to have an icy, imperious disposition and an obsession with film.^[1] He was a combat pilot during World War I and directed his first film Der Knabe in Blau ('The Boy in Blue') in 1919.

German films[link]

F.W. Murnau shooting a film in 1920.

Murnau's most famous film is Nosferatu, a 1922 adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula for which Stoker's widow sued for copyright infringement. Murnau lost the lawsuit and all prints of the film were ordered to be destroyed, but bootleg prints survived. The vampire, played by German stage actor Max Schreck, resembled a rat which was known to carry the plague. The origins of the word are from Stoker's novel, where it is used by the Romanian townsfolk to refer to Count Dracula and presumably, other undead.

Nearly as important as Nosferatu in Murnau's filmography was The Last Laugh ("Der Letzte Mann", German "The Last Man") (1924), written by Carl Mayer (a very prominent figure of the Kammerspielfilm movement) and starring Emil Jannings. The film introduced the subjective point of view camera, where the camera "sees" from the eyes of a character and uses visual style to convey a character's psychological state. It also anticipated the cinéma vérité movement in its subject matter. The film also used the "Unchained Camera Technique", a mix of tracking shots, pans, tilts, and dolly moves. Also, unlike the majority of Murnau's other works, The Last Laugh is considered a Kammerspielfilm with Expressionist elements. Unlike expressionist films, Kammerspielfilme are categorized by their chamber play influence, involving a lack of intricate set designs and story lines / themes regarding social injustice towards the working classes.

Murnau's last German film was the big budget Faust (1926) with Gösta Ekman as the title character, Emil Jannings as Mephisto and Camilla Horn as Gretchen. Murnau's film draws on older traditions of the legendary tale of Faust as well as on Goethe's classic version. The film is well known for a sequence in which the giant, winged figure of Mephisto hovers over a town sowing the seeds of plague.

Nosferatu (music by Hans Erdmann) and Faust (music by Werner Richard Heymann) were two of the first films to feature original film scores.

Hollywood[link]

F.W Murnau with Henri Matisse at Tahiti in 1930.

Murnau emigrated to Hollywood in 1926, where he joined the Fox Studio and made Sunrise (1927), a movie often cited by film scholars as one of the greatest films of all time.^[2] Filmed in the Fox Movietone sound-on-film system (music and sound effects only), Sunrise was not a financial success, but received several Oscars at the very first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929. In winning the Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Production it shared what is now the Best Picture award with the movie Wings.

Murnau's next two films, the (now lost) Four Devils (1928) and City Girl (1930), were modified to adapt to the new era of sound film and were not well received. Their poor receptions disillusioned Murnau, and he quit Fox to journey for a while in the South Pacific.

Together with documentary film pioneer Robert Flaherty, Murnau travelled to Bora Bora to realize the film Tabu in 1931. Flaherty left after artistic disputes with Murnau who had to finish the movie on his own. The movie was censored in the United States for images of bare-breasted Polynesian women.^{[citation needed]} The film was originally shot by cinematographer Floyd Crosby as half-talkie, half-silent, before being fully restored as a silent film — Murnau's preferred medium.

Death[link]

Grave and bust, by Karl Ludwig Manzel, in the Stahnsdorf Southwestern Cemetery

Murnau's memorial plaque in Berlin.

Murnau died in an automobile accident in Santa Barbara, California on 11 March 1931 ^[3] and therefore did not live to see the premiere of his last film. He was entombed in Southwest Cemetery in Stahnsdorf (Südwest-Kirchhof Stahnsdorf) near Berlin. Only 11 people attended the funeral. Among them were Robert Flaherty, Emil Jannings, Greta Garbo and Fritz Lang, who delivered the funeral speech. Garbo also commissioned a death mask of Murnau, which she kept on her desk during her years in Hollywood.^[4]

Derivative works[link]

In 2000, director E. Elias Merhige released Shadow of the Vampire, a fictionalization of the making of Nosferatu. Murnau is portrayed by John Malkovich. In the film, Murnau is so dedicated to making the film genuine that he actually hires a real vampire (Willem Dafoe) to play Count Orlok.

Filmography[link]

• Der Knabe in Blau (The Boy in Blue, released 28 June 1919)
• Satanas (released around 30 January 1920 but made in 1919)
• Der Bucklige und die Tänzerin (The Hunchback and the Dancer, released 8 July 1920)
• Der Janus-Kopf (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde / The Head of Janus, released 17 September 1920)
• Abend – Nacht – Morgen (Evening – Night – Morning, released October 1920)
• Sehnsucht (Desire: The Tragedy of a Dancer, released 18 October 1920)
• Der Gang in die Nacht (Journey Into the Night, released 13 December 1920)
• Schloß Vogelöd (The Haunted Castle / Castle Vogeloed, released April 1921)
• Marizza (released 20 January 1922 but filmed in 1921)
• Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror, released 5 March 1922)
• Der brennende Acker (The Burning Soil, released 16 March 1922)
• Phantom (released 29 October 1922)
• Die Austreibung (The Expulsion, released 23 October 1923)
• Die Finanzen des Großherzogs (The Grand Duke's Finances, released 7 January 1924)
• Der letzte Mann (The Last Laugh, released 23 December 1924)
• Herr Tartüff (Tartuffe, released 25 January 1926)
• Faust (released 14 October 1926)
• Sunrise (released 23 September 1927, won a special Oscar for "Unique Artistic Presentation" at the first Academy Awards)
• 4 Devils (released 3 October 1928, is generally regarded as one of his best works and is a highly sought-after lost film)
• City Girl / Our Daily Bread (released 19 May 1930)
• Tabu (released 18 March 1931)

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

• Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Foundation, the legal successor to UFA, Bavaria, Terra, Tobis, and Berlin-Film
• F. W. MURNAU at internettrash.com
• F. W. Murnau at AllRovi
• F. W. Murnau at the Internet Movie Database
• F.W. Murnau at filmportal.de
• F. W. Murnau at Find a Grave

F. W. Woolworth Company

Industry	Retail
Fate	Name changed in 1997 to Venator Group, and in 2001 to Foot Locker, Inc.[1]
Successor(s)	Foot Locker
Founded	July 18 1879
Defunct	July 1997
Headquarters	New York, NY, USA
Products	Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, consumer electronics and housewares
Subsidiaries	Woolco (defunct 1982 in the U.S., Canadian stores sold to Wal-Mart in 1994) Woolworths Group plc (separate 1982) Woolworth GmbH (separate 1998) Kinney Shoe Company (acquired 1963), now Foot Locker (successor)

The F. W. Woolworth Company (often referred to as Woolworth's or Woolworth) was a retail company that was one of the original American five-and-dime stores. The first Woolworth store was opened on July 18, 1879 by Frank Winfield Woolworth in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as "Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store". Despite growing to be one of the largest retail chains in the world through most of the 20th century, increased competition led to its decline beginning in the 1980s. The chain went out of business in July 1997, when the company decided to focus on the Foot Locker division and renamed itself Venator Group. By 2001, the company focused exclusively on the sporting goods market, changing its name to the present Foot Locker Inc (NYSE: FL).

Retail chains using the Woolworth name survive in Germany, Austria, Mexico, South Africa and, until the start of 2009, in the United Kingdom. The similarly named Woolworths supermarkets in Australia and New Zealand are operated by Australia's largest retail company Woolworths Limited, a separate company with no historical links to the F.W. Woolworth Company or Foot Locker, Inc. However, Woolworths Limited did take their name from the original company, as it had not been registered or trademarked in Australia at the time.

History[link]

Door handle of a mid-20th century Woolworth store.

Origin[link]

The F.W. Woolworth Co. had the first five-and-dime stores, which sold discounted general merchandise at fixed prices, usually five or ten cents, undercutting the prices of other local merchants. Woolworth, as the stores popularly became known, was one of the first American retailers to put merchandise out for the shopping public to handle and select without the assistance of a sales clerk. Earlier retailers had kept all merchandise behind a counter, and customers presented the clerk with a list of items they wished to buy.

After working in a dry goods store in Watertown, New York, Frank Winfield Woolworth opened the "Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store" in Utica, New York, on February 22, 1878. The store failed and closed in May 1878. Frank soon made a second attempt and opened his "Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store", using the same sign, on June 21, 1879, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with a revised formula of merchandise. Lancaster proved a success, and Frank never forgot the city for the rest of his life. Frank hired his brother Charles Sumner "Sum" Woolworth as manager for a second store in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. After a fallout with the landlord, that store moved to York, Pennsylvania. That store did not last long, either. Frank searched for a larger, low rent building. He found an ideal location in Scranton, Pennsylvania, at 125 Penn Avenue and opened the store on November 6, 1880, with Sum as manager. The Scranton store is where Sum developed the brothers' "5¢ & 10¢" merchandising model. He spent a lot of time working the sales floor, talking with customers, and employees. He often personally served customers. Sales grew steadily. By 1881 at Franks suggestion, Sum bought out his brother's share of the Scranton store in two installments, in January 1881 and 1882. This made Sum the first Woolworth Bro's franchisee.

In 1884, confident enough to open another store, Sum partnered with his long-time friend Fred Kirby to open a store in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, a neighboring town to the west of Scranton. Fred had been working as the head of wholesale operations at Moore and Smith. Each man put up $600 to launch the Wilkes-Barre store called "Woolworth and Kirby". Fred managed the new store, and while sales were initially poor, the store soon caught on. By 1887 he used his profits to buy out Sum and expand the store under his name. Sum and Fred remained the best of friends. During this time, Frank was expanding with more stores. Sum's approach was different; he worked to perfect the look and feel of his Scranton store. It had mahogany counters with glass dividers and glass-fronted showcases. The store was brightly lit, new, and the wooden floor was polished to a lustrous shine. The layout was soon adopted by Frank for his F. W. Woolworth stores and became the standard as the two brothers persuaded family members and former co-workers from Moores to join them in forming a 'friendly rival syndicate' of five-and-ten-cent stores. Each of the syndicate chain's stores looked similar inside and out but operated under its founder's name. Frank Woolworth provided much of the merchandise, encouraging the rivals to club together to maximize their inventory and purchasing power.

At the same time, using his preference to have someone he could trust, Frank brought in their cousin, Seymour H. Knox I, to open a store in Reading, Pennsylvania, under the name "Woolworth and Knox". Seymour had been managing a general store in Michigan.^[2]

Rise and expansion[link]

The Woolworth Building, New York, New York, c. 1913

By 1904, there were six chains of affiliated stores operating in the United States and Canada. Between 1905 and 1908, members of the Woolworth Syndicate followed Frank's lead to incorporate their businesses. Sum maintained that he did not need to incorporate his stores. In 1912 the syndicate agreed to a scheme crafted by Frank Woolworth: to join forces and incorporate as one corporate entity under the name "F. W. Woolworth Company" in a merger of all 596 stores. The stock flotation raised over $30 million for the five founders of the merged chains. They all swallowed their pride and accepted Frank's name above the door, with Frank as President of the new Corporation. Sum Woolworth, Fred Kirby, Seymour Knox, Earle Charlton, and William Moore each became a Director and Vice-President. One of the "friendly rival" predecessor chains included several stores initially opened as Woolworth & Knox stores starting as early as September 20, 1884 as well as S. H. Knox & Co. 5 & 10 Cent Stores opened after an 1889 buyout by his cousin, Seymour H. Knox I. Knox's chain grew to 98 U.S. and 13 Canada stores by the time of the corporate consolidation. Fred M. Kirby added 96 stores, Earle Charlton added 35, Charles Sumner Woolworth added 15, and William Moore added two.^[3]

Sum Woolworth continued to maintain his home base in Scranton, PA. He was not the type to get embroiled in the politics, as executives of the different chains sought to establish themselves in the merger. As he did from the beginning, Sum concentrated on improving stores, particularly in his native Pennsylvania, and training up-and-coming managers. Those managers eventually dispersed across the entire company, setting the style and tone of Woolworth stores worldwide.

In 1900, Frank launched his first development plan in the city of his first success, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Rather than just enlarging his store on North Queen Street, he bought up properties along the street in an area which was not considered a "good" side of town. By keeping everything quiet and in that area, real estate prices were not inflated. When he finished the real estate purchases, he announced his plan to build a skyscraper, a building with five floors of offices above a large store. The roof had a garden and an open-air theater. The theater was a huge hit in town, and soon became the city's social center. This project was something of a dress rehearsal for his next venture.

Tea cup ballet, a 1935 photograph by Olive Cotton with some inexpensive cups and saucers from Woolworths.

Second successful Woolworth Bros store, Scranton, PA. Later owned by C. S. Woolworth, and eventually part of the J. W. Woolworth Company.

In 1910, Frank Woolworth took another leap and commissioned the design and construction of the Woolworth Building in New York City. A pioneering early skyscraper, it was designed by American architect Cass Gilbert, a graduate of the MIT architecture school. The building was entirely paid for in cash. It was completed in 1913 and was the tallest building in the world until 1930. It also served as the company’s headquarters until it was sold by the F.W. Woolworth Company’s successor, the Venator Group (now Foot Locker), in 1998.

Frank Woolworth, president of F. W. Woolworth, Corporation, died in 1919, in Glen Cove, New York. Sum's demeanor made him the perfect candidate to head the F. W. Woolworth Corporation after the death of his brother. He was non-confrontational, as everyone else positioned themselves in the company. The Board of Directors unanimously asked Sum to take on the Presidency. With his infamous modesty he declined. He did, however, agree to take the new role of Chairman. Company Treasurer, Hubert Parson, took the Presidency. Over the following twenty-five years, Sum saw four Presidents come and go. He gave each one quiet-spoken advice and good counsel. As Chairman, he facilitated debate and ensured issues were properly confronted and argued out by the Board.

The stores eventually incorporated lunch counters after the success of the counters in the first store in the UK in Liverpool and served as general gathering places, a precursor to the modern shopping mall food court. A Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina became the setting for a significant event during the civil rights movement (see below).

The Woolworth's concept was widely copied, and five-and-ten-cent stores (also known as five-and-dime stores or dimestores) became a 20th century fixture in American downtowns. They would serve as anchors for suburban shopping plazas and shopping malls in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Criticisms that five-and-dime stores drove local merchants out of business would repeat themselves in the early 21st century, when big box discount stores became popular. However, many five-and-dime stores were locally owned or franchised, as are many dollar stores today.

Diversification[link]

Woolworth logo used during the 1960s and 1970s

In the 1960s, the five-and-dime concept evolved into the larger discount store format. In 1962, Woolworth's founded a chain of large, single floor discount stores called Woolco. Some of these stores were branded as Winfields, after the founder's middle name. This was the same year as its competitors opened similar retail chains that sold merchandise at a discount: the S.S. Kresge Company opened Kmart, Dayton's opened Target, and Sam Walton opened his first Wal-Mart store.

By Woolworth’s 100th anniversary in 1979, it had become the largest department store chain in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

Decline[link]

The growth and expansion of the company contributed to its downfall. The Woolworth company moved away from its five-and-dime roots and placed less emphasis on its department store chain as it focused on its specialty stores. Still, the company was unable to compete with other chains that had eroded its market share. While it was a success in Canada, the Woolco chain closed in the United States in 1983. Europe's largest F W Woolworth store, in Manchester, England, one of two in the city center, suffered a disastrous fire in May 1979. Despite the store being rebuilt, even larger and up to the latest fire codes, the horror stories in the press, coupled with the loss of life, sealed its fate. It finally closed in 1986. During the rebuild and partly as a result of the bad press, the UK operation was isolated from the parent company as Woolworths plc. This proved fortuitous as the brand subsequently lasted a full twelve years longer in the UK than it did in the US. On October 15, 1993, Woolworth's embarked on a restructuring plan that included closing half of its 800-plus general merchandise stores in the United States and converting its Canadian stores to a closeout division named The Bargain! Shop. Woolco and Woolworth survived in Canada until 1994, when the majority of its stores there were sold to Wal-Mart. Stores that were not purchased by Wal-Mart (primarily smaller locations) were converted to The Bargain! Shop stores, or sold to Zellers.

Focus[link]

Still with the decline of the signature stores, Woolworth marched on with a new focus toward athletic goods on January 30, 1997, acquiring the mail-order catalogue athletic retailer Eastbay.

On May 6, 1991, Wal-Mart replaced Woolworth's as a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Analysts at the time cited the lower prices of the large discount stores and the expansion of supermarket grocery stores – which had begun to stock merchandise also sold by five-and-dime stores – as contributors to Woolworth's decline in the late 20th century. On July 17, 1997, Woolworth's closed its remaining department stores in the U.S. and changed its corporate name to Venator.

In 1999, Venator moved out of the Woolworth building in New York City to offices on 34th Street. On October 20, 2001, the company changed names again; this time, it took the name of its top retail performer and became Foot Locker, Inc. Foot Locker stores chiefly sell athletic clothing and footwear.

Greensboro sit-in[link]

On February 1, 1960, four black students sat down at a segregated lunch counter in a Greensboro, North Carolina, Woolworth's store. They were refused service, touching off six months of sit-ins and economic boycotts that became a landmark event in the U.S. civil-rights movement. In 1993, an eight-foot section of the lunch counter was moved to the Smithsonian Institution and the store site now contains a civil rights museum, which had its grand opening on Monday, February 1, 2010, the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the sit-ins.^[4]

Non-American retail users of the Woolworth name[link]

A Woolworths store in the UK

• Woolworths Group plc originally was the British unit of F.W. Woolworth's, but operated independently as a separate company from 1982, running stores in the UK, Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey. On November 26, 2008 Woolworth's Group plc announced that they were in too much debt to maintain their outgoing payments. The remaining British Woolworth's stores closed by January 6, 2009, with the loss of almost 30,000 jobs.^[5]
• Woolworths Limited is the largest retail corporation in Australia, operating a variety of supermarket and other retail chains in Australia and New Zealand. The name "Woolworths" was legally taken to capitalize on the F.W. Woolworth name since they did not do business in Australia and had not registered the trademark there but is in no other way connected to the U.S. or U.K. Woolworths.^[6]
• Woolworths is an upmarket retail chain in South Africa selling goods of a comparable nature to Marks & Spencer stores in the United Kingdom. The South African company also operates stores in Bahrain, Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.^[7]
• Woolworth GmbH was the German unit of F.W. Woolworths, but has operated independently since 1998 as a result of the original company's change of focus.
• Woolworth Mexicana operates a chain of small variety stores in Mexico, sold in December 1997 to Control Dinamico S.A. by Foot Locker Inc ^[8] now is a subsidiary of Grupo Comercial Control, S.A. de C.V.^[9]
• Woolworth's operates independently in Bridgetown Barbados, having split from the British branch in 1982.^[10] It was established in the 1950s, stocking goods shipped from Britain.

Presidents[link]

• Frank Winfield Woolworth (1852–1919) from founding to 1919.
• Hubert Templeton Parson 1919 to 1932.^[11][12]
• Byron D. Miller 1932 to 1935.^[13]
• Charles Deyo 1935 to 1946.
• Alfred Cornwell 1946 to 1954.
• James T. Leftwich 1954 to 1958.
• Robert C. Kirkwood 1958 to 1965.
• Lester A. Burcham 1965 to 1970.
• John S. Roberts 1970 to 1975.
• Edward F. Gibbons 1975 to 1978.
• W. Robert Harris 1978 to ?.
• Frederick E. Hennig 1987 to 1995.^[14]
• Roger N. Farah 1994 to ?.

See also[link]

	New York City portal
	Companies portal

• List of Woolworth buildings
• Variety store
• Woolco

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: F. W. Woolworth Company

• Woolworth Museum

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]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Bram Stoker

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bram Stoker

• Bram Stoker at the Open Directory Project
• Bram Stoker at the Internet Movie Database
• h2g2 article on Bram Stoker
• Bram Stoker's brief biography and works
• 20 Common Misconceptions and Other Miscellaneous Information
• The Stoker Dracula Organisation
• Gothic and Stoker Studies at Bath Spa University

Online texts[link]

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Bram Stoker

• Works by Bram Stoker at Project Gutenberg Full text versions of some of Stoker's novels.
• Bram Stoker Online Full text and PDF versions of most of Stoker's works.
• Bram Stoker's Dracula Full text of Stoker's novel Dracula.
• Works by Bram Stoker on Open Library at the Internet Archive