Abraham (Bram) Stoker was born November 8, 1847 in Dublin, Ireland. His father was a civil servant and his mother was a charity worker and writer. Stoker was a sickly child and spent a lot of time in bed. Growing up his mother told him a lot of horror stories which may have influenced his later writings.

In 1864 Stoker entered Trinity College Dublin. While attending college he began working as an Irish civil servant. He also worked part time as a freelance journalist and drama critic.In 1876 he met Henry Irving, a famous actor, and they soon became friends. Not long after that, Stoker met and fell in

love with an aspiring actress named In 1878 Stoker accepted a job working in London as Irving's personal secretary. According to an announcement in the December 5, 1878 issue of The Freeman's Journal: and Daily Commercial Advertiser Stoker and Balcombe were married on December 4, 1878 at St. Anne's Parish Church, Dublin, by the Rev. Charles W. Benson. On December 9, Stoker and his new wife moved to England to join Irving. His first book "The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland" though written while he was still in Dublin, was published in 1879. On December 30, 1879 Stoker and his wife had their only child, a son Noel. While in England Stoker also wrote several novels and short stories. His first book of fiction, "Under the Sunset," was published in 1881.

Although best known for "Dracula", Stoker wrote eighteen books before his death in 1912. He died of exhaustion at the age of 64.

DraculaDracula was published in 1897 in England, and is considered to be a masterpiece. The novel is classed as falling under different categories depending on the perception of the reader, including; vampire literature, horror fiction, gothic literature and invasion literature. Throughout the 1880/90s, many authors wrote tales focusing on creatures threatening the

British Empire, so Stoker’s ideas were familiar to the audience of adventure stories. Parts of the text are set around the town of Whitby which is where Stoker spent his summer holidays.

The novel focuses on the Dracula’s attempt to move from Transylavnia to England in order to find fresh and spread the curse of vampirism. This results in a battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Van Helsing.

Dracula is not the first appearance of a vampire, but it defined the modern form of vampires, and the popularity of the text can still be seen in contemporary society due to the numerous theatre, film and television interpretations. Although Victorian readers did enjoy the text, it did not reach its iconic status until later in the 20th Century when film adaptations began.

The novel is an epistolary one, as it is compromised of a series of letters, diary entries, newspaper articles, and ships’ log entries, the narrators of which are the novel’s protagonists. The events of the novel take place in chronological order and are largely set in England and Transylvania during the 1890s, and within May 3rd – November 6th of the same year.

There was a short story printed two years after Stoker’s death in named “Dracula’s Guest”, and most contemporary critics believe it to be the deleted first chapter from the original manuscript, but the publishers deemed it to be unnecessary to the story.Stoker spent the seven years previous to writing the novel researching European folklore and stories of vampired, being most influenced by Emily Gerald’s essay “Transylvania Superstitions” (1885)

Dracula = Romanian language = “Dracul” – either the dragon or the devil.

Charlotte Brontë Born: April 21, 1816 Thornton, Yorkshire, England 

Died: March 31, 1855 Haworth, Yorkshire, England English novelist

Charlotte Brontë was one of three English sisters who had books published in the mid-1800s. Her writing described, with a dramatic force that was entirely new to English fiction, the conflict between love and independence and the struggle of the individual to maintain his or her self-esteem.

Early lifeCharlotte Brontë was born in Thornton in Yorkshire, England, on April 21, 1816, the third of Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell's six children. Her father was an Anglican minister who moved the family to Haworth, also in Yorkshire, in 1820 after finding work at a church there. Except for a brief and unhappy period when she attended a religious school—later described in the opening chapters of Jane Eyre —most of Charlotte's early education was provided at home by her father. After the early death of her mother, followed by the passing of her two older sisters, Brontë, now nine years old, lived in isolation with her father, aunt, sisters Anne and Emily, and brother Patrick Branwell.With their father not communicating much with them, and having no real contact with the outside world, the children spent their time reading and creating their own imaginary worlds. They recorded the events occurring in these imaginary worlds in miniature writing on tiny sheets of paper. Anne and Emily made up a kingdom called Gondal, while Charlotte and Patrick created the realm of Angria, which was ruled by the Duke of Zamorna. Zamorna's romantic conquests make up the greater part of Charlotte's contributions. He was a character who ruled by strength of will and feeling and easily conquered women—they recognized the evil in him but could not fight their attraction to him.The conflict between this dream world and her everyday life caused Brontë great suffering. Although her life was outwardly calm, she lived out the struggles of her made-up characters in her head. At age fifteen she began to work as a schoolteacher. She and both of her sisters later worked watching over the children of wealthy families. While attending a language school in Brussels, Belgium, in 1843 and 1844, she seems to have fallen in love with a married professor at the school, but she never fully admitted the fact to herself.

Books publishedAfter returning to Haworth in 1844, Charlotte Brontë became depressed. She was lonely and felt that she lacked the ability to do any creative work. She discovered that both of her sisters had been writing poetry, as she had. They decided to each write a novel and offer all of them together to publishers. Her sisters' novels were accepted for publication, but

Charlotte's The Professor, based upon her Brussels experience, was rejected. (It was not published until after her death.) However, the publisher offered her friendly criticism and encouraged her to try again.Charlotte Brontë's second novel, Jane Eyre, was published in 1847. It became the most successful book of the year. She hid at first

.behind the pseudonym (pen, or assumed, writing name) Currer Bell, but later she revealed that she was the author of the book. Of all Brontë's novels, Jane Eyre most clearly shows the traces of her earlier stories about the imaginary Angria in the character of Rochester, with his mysterious ways and shady past. However, the governess, Jane, who loves him, does not surrender to Rochester. Instead she struggles to maintain her dignity and a balance between the opposing forces of passion and her religious beliefs.

During 1848 and 1849, within eight months of each other, Brontë's remaining two sisters and brother died. Despite her grief she managed to finish a new novel, Shirley (1849). It was set in her native Yorkshire during the Luddite industrial riots of 1812, when textile workers whose jobs had been taken over by machines banded together to destroy the machines. Shirley used social issues as a ground for a study of the bold and active heroine and a friend who represents someone with more traditional feminine qualities. In her last completed novel, Villette (1853), Brontë again turned to the Brussels affair, treating it now more directly.Despite her success as a writer, Charlotte Brontë continued to live a quiet life at home in Yorkshire. In 1854 she married Arthur Nicholls, a man who had once worked as an assistant to her father, but she died within a year of their marriage on March 31, 1855.

Frankenstein was dreamed up (literally) by Mary Shelley while she was staying in Switzerland in 1816. This was a time of great scientific, political and social change. Knowledge of these developments, and Shelley's eventful life, will help you understand the novel:

Mary Shelley

Born in 1797, Mary was the daughter of William Godwin - a famous writer with revolutionary ideas - and Mary Wollstonecraft, herself a writer and arguably the world's first feminist.

Her mother died days after giving birth to her - the first of many tragedies in Shelley's life. Some of these tragedies would later inspire events in Frankenstein.

In 1812, Mary met the poet Percy Shelley. Percy and his wife Harriet were frequent visitors to the London home of Mary's father.

Mary ran off to France with Percy in 1814. She gave birth to his child in 1815 - but the baby died just 12 days later.

Harriet drowned herself in 1816, allowing Percy to marry Mary soon after. The general public was outraged.

After coming up with the idea for her novel in Switzerland, Frankenstein was published two years later in 1818 - Mary was still only 20.

Mary's second son, William, died aged three in 1821. Percy drowned in 1822. Mary and Percy's great friend, the writer and poet Lord Byron, died in 1824.

Mary was devastated by this, and the loneliness caused by the death of so many of her friends and family.

Mary died in 1851. Although she wrote many other books, none matched the success of Frankenstein.

Age of revolutionMary Shelley was born into a world of scientific, artistic and political revolution. Her father and husband were famous radical thinkers and writers, and both of them (along with other important philosophers of the day) had a large influence on Mary and her novel.

One of her father's main ideas was that everyone should act only for the good of mankind; otherwise, selfishness would lead to the breakdown of society. This view influenced Frankenstein in that Victor largely thinks and acts only for himself, ignoring the wishes of the Monster (for example, by not creating a wife for it), thereby endangering mankind by giving it a reason to do harm. Victor is also a bad parent, deserving punishment for abandoning his creature.

Many people see this book as promoting the revolutionary ideas that dominated the political world at the time, since Victor challenges authority (God) by creating life himself. The Monster is also revolutionary in its hostility towards authority (its 'father'). Yet both the Monster and Victor are punished with death - leading other people to conclude that Shelley is critical of political revolution.

When writing this book, Mary was influenced by the scientific revolution of the time. She had heard about one man, Galvani, who had supposedly re-animated dead tissue, and another, Aldini, who had wired up a criminal's corpse to a battery so that his jaw appeared to move and a fist to clench. Such discoveries were discussed at the holiday home of the Shelleys in the weeks before Frankenstein was written.

Literary backgroundThe most important literary style to influence the novel was Gothic horror. Mary said her story was born out of long days and nights on holiday with Percy, Byron and another friend, when persistent rain had kept them indoors with only the works of German Gothic writers for amusement. This led to the idea of a ghost-story contest, for which the young Mary wrote her initial draft, inspired by a nightmare she'd had. The Gothic features of the story include its horrific descriptions, use of overpowering emotions and exotic, often remote, settings.

Other writers to influence Mary were Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who had read his poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to Mary when she was four. She later remembered being terrified by this, but used similar themes of discovery and isolation in her story. Another poem, Paradise Lost by John Milton, also inspired her. In Frankenstein, the Monster compares himself to the main character, Satan (the devil).

Emily Brontë NAME

Emily Brontë

BIRTH DATEJuly 30, 1818

DEATH DATEDecember 19, 1848

PLACE OF BIRTHThornton, Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom

PLACE OF DEATHHaworth, Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom

AKAEmily BrontëEllis Bell

Synopsis

Born in Thornton, Yorkshire, England, on July 30, 1818, Emily Jane Brontë lived a quiet life in Yorkshire with her clergyman father; brother, Branwell Brontë; and two sisters, Charlotte and Anne. The sisters enjoyed writing poetry and novels, which they published under pseudonyms. As "Ellis Bell," Emily wrote Wuthering Heights (1847)—her only published novel—which garnered wide critical and commerical acclaim. Emily Brontë died in Haworth, Yorkshire, England, on December 19, 1848—the same year that her brother, Branwell, passed away.

Early Life

Born on July 30, 1818, in Thornton, Yorkshire, England, Emily Brontë is best remembered for her 1847 novel, Wuthering Heights. She was not the only creative talent in her family—her sisters Charlotte and Anne enjoyed some literary success as well. Her father had published several works during his lifetime, too.

Emily was the fifth child of Reverend Patrick Brontë and his wife, Maria Branwell Brontë. The family moved to Haworth in April 1821. Only a few months later, Brontë's mother died of cancer; her death came nearly nine months after the birth of her sister, Anne. Her mother's sister, Elizabeth Branwell, came to live with the family to help care for the children.

At the age of 6, Emily was sent to the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge with Charlotte and her two oldest sisters, Elizabeth and Maria. Both Elizabeth and Maria became seriously ill at school and returned home, where they died of tuberculosis in 1825. Brontë's father removed both Emily and Charlotte from the school as well.

At home in Haworth, Brontë enjoyed her quiet life. She read extensively and began to make up stories with her siblings. The surviving Brontë children, which included brother Branwell, had strong imaginations. They created tales inspired by toy soldiers given to Branwell by their father. In 1835, the shy Emily tried leaving home for school. She went with Charlotte to Miss Wooler's school in Roe Head where Charlotte worked as a teacher. But she stayed only a few months before heading back to Haworth.

Coming from a poor family, Brontë tried to find work. She became a teacher at the Law Hill School in September 1837, but she left her position the following March. Brontë and her sister Charlotte traveled to Brussels in 1842 to study, but the death of their aunt Elizabeth forced them to return home.

'Wuthering Heights'

Some of Emily's earliest known works involve a fictional world called Gondal, which she created with her sister Anne. She wrote both prose and poems about this imaginary place and its inhabitants. Emily also wrote other poems as well. Her sister Charlotte discovered some of Emily's poems and sought to publish them along with her own work and some by Anne. The three sisters used male pen names for their collection—Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Published in 1846, the book only sold a few copies and garnered little attention.

Again publishing as Ellis Bell, Brontë published her defining work, Wuthering Heights, in December 1847. The complex novel explores two families—the Earnshaws and the Lintons—across two generations and their stately homes, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. Heathcliff, an orphan taken in by the Earnshaws, is the driving force between the action in the book. He first motivated by his love for his Catherine Earnshaw, then by his desire for revenge against her for what he believed to be rejection.

Death and Legacy

At first, reviewers did not know what to make of Wuthering Heights. It was only after Brontë's death that the book developed its reputation as a literary masterwork. She died of tuberculosis on December 19, 1848, nearly two months after her brother, Branwell, succumbed to the same disease. Her sister Anne also fell ill and died of tuberculosis the following May.

Interest in Brontë's work and life remains strong today. The parsonage where Brontë spent much of her life is now a museum. The Brontë Society operates the museum and works to preserve and honor the work of the Brontë sisters.

Robert Louis Stevenson OCCUPATION

Author

BIRTH DATENovember 13, 1850

DEATH DATEDecember 3, 1894

EDUCATIONEdinburgh University, Edinburgh Academy

PLACE OF DEATHVailima, Samoa

Early Life

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on November 13, 1850, to Thomas and Margaret Stevenson. Lighthouse design was his father's and his family's profession, and so at the age 17, he enrolled at Edinburgh University to study engineering, with the goal of following his father in the family business. Lighthouse design never appealed to Stevenson, though, and he began studying law instead. His spirit of adventure truly began to appear at this stage, and during his summer vacations he traveled to France to be around young artists, both writers and painters. He emerged from law school in 1875, but did not practice, as, by this point, he felt that his calling was to be a writer.

The Writer Emerges

In 1878, Robert Louis Stevenson saw the publication of his first volume of work, An Inland Voyage; the book provides an account of his trip from Antwerp to northern France, which he made in a canoe via the river Oise. A companion work, Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes (1879), continues in the introspective vein of Inland Voyage and also focuses on the voice and character of the narrator, beyond simply telling a tale.

Also from this period are the humorous essays of Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881), which were originally published from 1876 to '79 in various magazines, and Stevenson's first book of short fiction, New Arabian Nights (1882). The stories marked the United Kingdom's emergence into the realm of the short story, which had previously been dominated by Russians, Americans and the French. These stories also marked the beginning of Stevenson's adventure fiction, which would come to be his calling card.

After they were married, the Stevensons took a three-week honeymoon at an abandoned silver mine in Napa Valley, California, and it was from this trip that The Silverado Squatters (1883) emerged. Also appearing in the early 1880s were Stevenson's short stories "Thrawn Janet" (1881), "The Treasure of Franchard" (1883) and "Markheim" (1885), the latter two having certain affinities with Treasure Island and Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde (both of which would be published by 1886), respectively.

'Treasure Island'

The 1880s were notable for both Stevenson's declining health (which had never been good) and his prodigious literary output. He suffered from hemorrhaging lungs (likely caused by undiagnosed tuberculosis), and writing was one of the few activities he could do while confined to bed. While in this bedridden state, he wrote some of his most popular fiction, most notably Treasure Island (1883), Kidnapped (1886), Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), and The Black Arrow (1888).

'Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'

The year 1886 saw the publication of what would be another enduring work, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which was an immediate success and helped cement Stevenson's reputation. The work is decidedly of the "adult" classification, as it presents a jarring and horrific exploration of various conflicting traits lurking within a single person. The book went on to international acclaim, inspiring countless stage productions and more than 100 motion pictures.

Final Years

In June 1888, Stevenson and his family set sail from San Francisco, California, to travel the islands of the Pacific Ocean, stopping for stays at the Hawaiian Islands, where he became good friends with King Kalākaua. In 1889, they arrived in the Samoan islands, where they decided to build a house and settle. The island setting stimulated Stevenson's imagination, and, subsequently, influenced his writing during this time: Several of his later works are about the Pacific isles, including The Wrecker (1892), Island Nights' Entertainments (1893), The Ebb-Tide (1894) and In the South Seas (1896).

Toward the end of his life, Stevenson's South Seas writing included more of the everyday world, and both his nonfiction and fiction became more powerful than his earlier works. These more mature works not only brought Stevenson lasting fame, they helped to enhance his status with the literary establishment when his work was re-evaluated in the late 20th century, and his abilities were embraced by critics as much as his storytelling had always been by readers.

Robert Louis Stevenson died of a stroke on December 3, 1894, at his home in Vailima, Samoa. He was buried at the top of Mount Vaea, overlooking the sea.

1. THE STORY CAME TO STEVENSON IN A DREAM ...

Stevenson had long been fascinated with split personalities but couldn’t figure out

how to write about them. Then one night he had a  dream  about Dr. Jekyll and Mr.

Hyde. “In the small hours of one morning ... I was awakened by cries of horror from

Louis," his wife Fanny said . "Thinking he had a nightmare, I awakened him. He said

angrily: 'Why did you wake me? I was dreaming a fine bogey tale.'" Stevenson later

elaborated on the dream in an essay called "A Chapter On Dreams ."

2. ... AND IT MAY HAVE BEEN INFLUENCED BY A CABINET FROM HIS CHILDHOOD.

Many historians  speculate that the duality of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was inspired by

an 18th century Edinburgh cabinet maker named Deacon Brodie,  a respectable town

councilor and an extremely successful craftsman. Brodie's job gave him access to the

keys of the rich and famous, which he made copies of in order to rob them at

night. After a string of heists, he was eventually caught and hanged (according to

legend , on a gallows that he helped design). 

Brodie's story fascinated the people of Edinburgh, including Stevenson—even though

the thief died more than 60 years before Stevenson was born. The future writer  grew

up with a Brodie cabinet in his room, and in 1880 , he cowrote a play called Deacon

Brodie, or the Double Life. But the cabinet, and the man who built it, may have

influenced Jekyll and Hyde, too: In 1887, Stevenson told an interviewer  that the dream

that inspired his story involved a man “being pressed into a cabinet, when he

swallowed a drug and changed into another being.”  

3. IT WAS PENNED IN A MATTER OF DAYS.

A lifelong invalid, Stevenson was sick with tuberculosis  when he wrote the famous

tale. He’d recently suffered a lung hemorrhage and was under doctor’s orders to rest

and avoid excitement. Still, that didn’t stop him from cranking out the first draft of the

30,000-word novella in somewhere between three  and six days flat , and then a second,

rewritten draft in another meager three days (more about that in a minute).

4. STEVENSON MAY HAVE BEEN ON COCAINE WHEN HE WROTE IT.

In the book, Dr. Jekyll takes a drug from a chemist that turns him into another person.

He likes it—until he loses control of the drug. Stevenson may have been drawing from

personal experience. It's been reported  that he was prescribed medicinal cocaine to

treat his hemorrhage (it was discovered in the 1880s that  cocaine tightens blood

vessels ), and that the inspired dream for the story occurred during a cocaine-fueled

slumber. Stevenson later professed an affection for the drug  and his crazy writing stint

is consistent with someone on cocaine. Then again, it’s also consistent with a man

faced with financial problems and his own mortality, swept up by inspiration and a

great idea.

5. THE FIRST DRAFT WAS DESTROYED ... 

According to one version of events, after reading the manuscript for  Jekyll and Hyde,

Fanny criticized its failure to successfully execute the story's moral allegory (among

other things). Fanny later recounted that she then found her husband sitting in bed

with a thermometer in his mouth . He pointed to a pile of ashes in the fireplace,

revealing he’d burned the draft. “I nearly fainted away with misery and horror when I

saw all was gone,” she wrote . 

6. DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE WAS AN IMMEDIATE SUCCESS.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde sold 40,000 copies  in six months, and soon there were more

than 250,000 pirated copies in North America. People seized on the moral message of

the story. They wrote about it in religious newspapers and preachers gave sermons

about it in churches. Within a year, there was a play based on the book and soon there

were productions in Scotland and the United States. It was Stevenson’s most

successful novel.