Drakenstein

The Nightmares of the West

The 19th century of the English novel began with Frankenstein and ended with Dracula.

Frankenstein was first published anonymously in 1817- the doubt as to whether the novel, which created the literary figure of the „bad scientist”, was actually written by 18 year old Mary Shelley or her husband, the brilliant poet Percy Shelley, still persists.

Dracula dates back to 1897, when high capacity printing machines were already widespread, and its autorship has never been questioned.

Nevertheless, there are many similarities between Abraham Stoker and Shelley’s young wife, most importantly the fact that they were both situated on the edges of the literary world and were connected to it mostly by family or so to speak practical ties, and less by an all conquering creative passion.

Stoker’s marginal involvement with literature is conditioned by his managing the great actor Henry Irving, and just as Mary Shelley, he is the author of only one work of interest, the rest of his oeuvre consisting mostly of occasional newspaper articles. Any other piece he might have written is dwarfed by the worldwide reputation of Dracula.

Percy Shelley’s wife (and later widow), on the other hand, was on to something.

We can assuredly state that the creator of modern horror literature is an 18 year old young woman, and we can then further ruminate on the implications.

In the 1831 edition, published under her own name, the author tells the story of how Frankenstein came into being.

The young couple were speding time with Lord Byron at his Swiss home, and being forced inside by the rain, they entertained themselves by reading German ghost stories: „But it proved a wet, ungenial summer, and incessant rain often confined us for days to the house. Some volumes of ghost stories, translated from the German into French fell into our hands. There was the History of the Inconstant Lover, who, when he thought to clasp the bride to whom he had pledged his vows, found himself in the arms of the pale ghost of her whom he had deserted.”1

It is the summer of 1816, shortly after the Vienna Congress, Napoleon is already a thing of the past and the aristocratic youth of victorious Britain are entertaining themselves in the Swiss Alps with ghost stories translated from the German to French.

As we can see, the part that caught the imagination of the young author is that of the cheating lover, who is then haunted on his wedding night by his abandoned bride. There is nothing particular in this story, and we can sense that the original was more insinuating than it was sinister.

However, the outcome of the night is far more interesting: the two men decide, given the adverse weather conditions, to write similar stories themselves. Let us not forget that we are talking about two greats of Romantic literature, which type of literature as such is characterised by a strong presence of the ghostly.

The challenge naturally extends to the young wife too. Days of torment follow, Mary cannot be content with a sub par achivement and she knows exactly what a good horror story should be like: „I busled myself to think of a story – a story to rival those which had exited us to this task. One which would speak the mysterious fears of our nature and awaken thrilling horror – one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of heart. If I not accomplish these things, my ghost story would be unworthy of its name.”2

Mary is unable to come up with anything for days, then one night she overhears a conversation between her husband and Byron regarding the evolution of modern science, which will one day make the creation of artificial life possible.

The image of the pale scientist assembling a being from random body parts and bringing it to life haunts the author in her sleep: „I saw – with shut eyes, but acute mental vision – I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had ut together. I saw the hideous phanatasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion.3

The next day, much to their joy, she informs the men that she has a story and while they idle away the time in much improved weather conditions, she writes her novel. The work is published anonymously the following year, with a short and similarly anonymous introduction by her husband.

There is no room for doubt: Mary Shelley flings the whole arsenal at us, only television and the movies are missing from a perfect present day thriller.

Let us stop here for a moment: all this is happening before Edgar Allan Poe, before the creation of the myth of 19th Century English language crime fiction.

The history of which will be in a rather interesting manner marked by another young lady with an active imagination, namely Agatha Christie.

As it can be seen, the subject we have chosen has many ramifications and we have decided to thread carefully, not stirring panic, along one path. We will try to localise the horror as it came into being in the fantasy of those who created its two main monsters.

Let’s keep our path in mind, but first say a few words about the author of Dracula.

Abraham (Bram) Stoker is the third child of Irish parents (altogether he had six siblings) and his youth can be easily regarded as interesting, even mysterious. Due to ill health, he is home schooled up to the age of 16 but later becomes a well known athlete at Trinity College.

Stoker studied mathematics, was an athlete, played excellent football and was the chairman of the college’s philosophy club. In the meantime he developed a passion for the theatre, which was strongly influeced by the main star of his time, Henry Irving.

After a short detour as a public servant, he found his way back to the theatre, first as critic, then as Irving’s manager, a role which brought him into the centre of the theatrical world. He married Florence Balcombe, who had also been courted by Oscar Wilde, before he had made his homosexuality more or less public.

Irving’s death in 1905 was a huge blow for Stoker, who had a brain hemorrhage and was hospitalised, but after 24 hours of torment he recovered his senses and went on to live and work for another seven years.

Among other things he published an interview with the young Winston Churchill in the Daily Chronicle.

Stoker wrote Dracula in the last decade of the 19th Century- we can only guess how he had become interested in the vampire theme, and the novel only got its famous title in the last moment, as previoulsy even the publishing house had referred to it as Count Vampyr.

The story of the seemingly dead monsters coming back to life has become quite popular by then, Stoker mentions the Irish Le Fanu as an influence.

It can be sensed that the origins of Dracula are fertile ground for futher investigations, but as we have already made it known to our reader, we shall be more concerned with the localisation of these two monsters.

The case of Count Dracula is quite clear: he arrives to England from Transylvania, pointing out to the British just how threatened their world rule is at the hands of alll kinds of dark forces.

During the times of Mary Shelley the British world domination had just started to extert itself. Having defeated Napoleon, the continent seemed safe,

Italy, Switzerland and even France, who had just been taugh a lesson, were now available to the enthusiastic British tourists, so the Eastern part of the continent remained the only uncharted territory.

Mary Shelley’s character, Victor Frankenstein might be Swiss, but his monster comes to life in the German city of Ingolstadt, where the scientist is studying.