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Birth of a Legend Count Dracula, Bram Stoker and Whitby Incorporating the 1897 text of Bram Stoker's DRACULA Synopsis: A study of the influence Whitby exerted upon the planning stages and finalised form of Stoker’s Gothic masterpiece, ‘Dracula’, ‘Birth of a Legend’ examines Stoker’s visit to the town on the summer of 1890 and the discoveries he made there, including his first encounter with the name Dracula, in an obscure old fictional transformation of the 1885 wreck of the Russian ship Dmitry into the Demeter, the doomed schooner which brings Dracula to England. In order to provide a context the events of 1890 are presented within the framework of Stoker’s life and the continuing Dracula phenomenon. The book also includes the full 1897 text of Dracula the novel perhaps one of popular English literatures finest works. In popular imagination the name Dracula will always be associated with Transylvania. Yet the greater part of Bram Stoker’s classic tale of terror is set in England, and Count Dracula’s historical namesake was actually a Prince of Wallachia, a neighbouring state of Transylvania. The connection between these two salient points lies in the summer of 1890 when Stoker took a holiday in the Yorkshire fishing port of Whitby, a location which was to feature memorably in the novel as Dracula’s point of entry into England. In imaginative terms it was also his birthplace, as Stoker first discovered the name Dracula in an obscure book in a local library.
It may have been at the suggestion of his employer, the great Victorian actor Henry Irving, that Stoker took a holiday in Whitby. At the time he was working on a horror novel, in which the town was to feature heavily. An obscure book in a local library also provided the name of the novel’s villain and, ultimately, its title: Dracula. The Late CHARLES WHITING (AKA Leo Kessler, Duncan Harding etc) inspired me to take my writing career further after collaborating with him to finish another author’s work “From the Vale to Veldt” in 2006. At the launch of this book in December 2006 he suggested I refocus my literary career and looked forward to my revamped efforts.
“Never discourage the exploration of the darker byways of literature and history.” Author Paul M. Chapman In Stock - Now Available - For Dracula Fans of what ever age - 272 pages ISBN: 978 0 904775 21 1
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