Barbara Belford

The trouble with this book is that I was left feeling no real impression of the nature and personality of the man; so much so that I specifically made a margin note (my copy is a softcover and I annotate those liberally) on p. 288 where Belford quotes an American newspaper account of Stoker - "He - a great, shambling, good-natured overgrown boy ... wide-open full grey eyes that gaze so frankly into yours ... hard to imagine Bram Stoker a business manager, to say nothing of his possessing an imagination capable of projecting Dracula ..." I felt that this was the first glimpse I'd had of the real man; I now feel it was the only one. Belford, quite early in the book, sets up an idea of Stoker as a shadowy, almost unknowable figure in the background behind Henry Irving; but, surely, with the comparatively high profile Stoker had in London and on American tours, there must be more material in memoirs and letters of the period to get us closer to him?

In fact, she gave me much more of an impression of the characters and personalities of some of the 'supporting cast', especially Henry Irving and Ellen Terry.

This wasn't helped by Belford's habit of attributing to Stoker various internal emotional reactions to situations and happenings without giving any evidence for the attributions other than the occasional 'he must have'. This made me a little sceptical towards anything she had to say about Stoker's psychology.

On the subject of attribution, I suppose it is a bit carping to complain about the book's method of citation, which doesn't include any markers on the page itself - I found it irritating, but probably that's just me.

Having said all that, I should say that it's a good first introduction to Stoker's life. It seems, as much as I'm capable of judging, to lay out the main facts of his upbringing, education, and careers as a writer and in the theatre. Also, Belford has an easy style; I found the book generally very readable and rarely - if ever - heavy-going.

I'm giving it three and half stars. This is the first biography of Bram Stoker I've read and I learned a lot from it, but I was left rather unsatisfied at the end of it.… (more)