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An amateur historian has discovered a long-lost short story by Bram Stoker

(www.bbc.com)
272 points lermontov | 1 comments | 21 Oct 24 16:14 UTC | HN request time: 0.193s | source
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staticman2 ◴[21 Oct 24 19:00 UTC] No.41907241[source]▶
I remember reading somewhere- I think it was in an annotated addition of Dracula, or maybe it was a journal article- that said that Bram Stoker wrote a large number of novels but everything he wrote other than Dracula was awful. Per Wikipedia he wrote 14 books, supposedly he was only able to write one good one.
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reaperducer ◴[21 Oct 24 19:15 UTC] No.41907394[source]▶
I suspect you're getting downvoted by people who haven't actually read anything by Stoker.

My wife has read most of his stuff. I know because I buy it for her. She says aside from Dracula, most of it is not great.

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timeinput ◴[21 Oct 24 20:16 UTC] No.41908080[source]▶
For me it feels like Stokers dracula is only so popular because it's where all the tropes come from, not because it's particularly well written, or something like that.

It's one of those firsts that established a genre.

I know Stoker didn't invent vampires, but they came into western English speaking culture through his Dracula.

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1. jillesvangurp ◴[22 Oct 24 06:43 UTC] No.41911807[source]▶
I think that's classic chicken and egg. I've read it a few times over the years. It's a good story and fairly well written. And it obviously inspired movies and countless other works early on (as early as the 1920s). I don't think it has really been surpassed by other books or authors. Though there certainly have been some good ones. It both defines and leads the genre. Despite generations of literary critics trying to deconstruct and dismiss it, nobody has really done a better vampire story.

Thematically it is of course a dogs breakfast of repressed sexuality, homosexuality, etc. All of which were taboo topics in the Victorian age. Which is precisely why the story works so well. And even today it still works. If you can get over the Victorian era biases, it's a surprisingly fresh and modern story. Which is why modern takes on the story are still interesting.

And of course, these topics are still playing a role. Just look at the current election round in the US where things like abortion and gay rights are still being challenged. And it's not just the US where these topics are used by populist politicians to gain votes.