The Bram Stoker Society

THE BRAM STOKER SOCIETY NEWSLETTER
May 2006

On the evening of Tuesday 11th April, an important event, over a year in the planning, took place. This was the formal receiving by Dublin City Library and Archive of the Leslie Shepard Bram Stoker Collection. This momentous event occurred at the library in 138-144 Pearse Street (sometimes called the "Gilbert Library" after the enormous collection of Sir John Gilbert purchased by Dublin Corporation in 1900 and housed in this building) which is where the Leslie Shepard Bram Stoker Collection is being stored.

Over several decades, Leslie Shepard, the late chairman of the Bram Stoker Society, had built up a considerable library of books and tracts relating to the life, career and associations of Bram Stoker. This now comprises the Leslie Shepard Bram Stoker Collection which runs to over two hundred volumes. There are books about Transylvanian history and geography, books about Henry Irving and the Lyceum Theatre (including a number of playbills), books about the gothic and supernatural tradition in fiction, and various samples of the literature of that kind, not least by Stoker himself - several in foreign language translations, including Russian and Polish. The Leslie Shepard Bram Stoker Collection is an ideal place to start for those who wish to learn the basics about Bram Stoker and his writings. But it also contains invaluable material for those inclined to original pioneering research. This is an important bequest to the city of Dublin and a worthy tribute to the lives and achievements of two great men - the one a Dubliner by birth, the other a Dubliner by adoption and long sustained commitment. The collection is accessible for consultation but not borrowing. For details, see Dublin City Library's website at http://libcat.dublincity.ie/dublinc/catalogue/home-frame.form and then click on Leslie Shepard Provenance.

The collection was formally received by Lord Mayor of Dublin, Councillor Catherine Byrne, who in a witty acceptance speech spoke of her childhood reminiscences of the legend of Dracula and a prank played on her, when a young girl, by her brother which resulted in her having to act out the part of Dracula's bride. Dr. Máire Kennedy, Divisional Librarian with responsibility for special collections, spoke next, and paid particular attention to the origin of a number of the books, several of them having been personally inscribed to Leslie Shepard by their owners, authors and compilers. The principal presentation of the evening was made by Dr. Albert Power, who spoke about Leslie Shepard's life and achievements, and the circumstances under which he (Leslie) and David Lass and John Leahy founded the Bram Stoker Society in January 1980.

Towards the close of his lecture Albert spoke of the onward march of Bram Stoker appreciation since Leslie's passing on 20th August 2004, and noted three important books which Leslie would have been proud to have included in his library had he lived to enjoy them. True, two of these had just been published before Leslie passed away, but this does not detract from their significance to the world of Bram Stoker appreciation in the time that has elapsed since Leslie died.

The first is Paul Murray's From the Shadow of Dracula - A Life of Bram Stoker (Jonathan Cape, 2004). This is an excellent biography, well-written and meticulously researched, sympathetic to its subject-matter without being adulatory. By professional calling a diplomat, Paul Murray applies all the skills of discreet diplomacy to dispose of much of the two decades' (and more) accumulation of heavy academic and pseudo-academic commentary on Stoker and his vampire masterpiece. "I have given a flavour of academic commentary on Stoker", he tells us, adding that he strove "to reconcile the need of the general reader for a straightforward text and the demands of interpretative scholarship." Paul Murray admirably succeeds. Like Harry Ludlam before him, he has benefited from his application to members of Bram's own family, including great-nephew and earlier biographer, Daniel Farson, grand-daughter Ann Stoker-Dobbs and great-grandson, Noel Dobbs. Paul has enriched his book by dredging through a hitherto unplumbed wealth of contemporary source material. The result is as fascinating and comprehensive a biography of Bram Stoker as one is likely ever to read, its conclusions and insights all scrupulously derived from the discovered details of Bram's life and the contents of his writings - precisely as it ought to be!

The second suggested offering comes from the more specialist side of things, but is no less a well merited read on that account. This is Bram Stoker - A Bibliography by Richard Dalby and William Hughes (Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex: Desert Island Books, 2004). In part an update of Richard Dalby's remarkable Bram Stoker - A Bibliography of First Editions, published in 1983, this new work is a considerably expanded text, containing comprehensive details of the first and subsequent publications of all of Bram Stoker's writings, including articles and introductions to books by others, and a detailed list of reviews of Stoker's books and a bibliography of subsequent critical commentary. The book also features extensive introductory chapters by each of the authors - the one, Richard Dalby, a distinguished world-renowned bibliographer, anthologist and book collector, the other, William Hughes, a respected academic who has long made a professional specialism of Bram Stoker's work and other gothic writings.

The third constituent in this memorable triptych of worthy texts is Literary Walking Tours of Gothic Dublin by Dublin-based, Wisconsin-born writer, Brian J. Showers. Published by Nonsuch Ireland (with an aimed publication date of late June 2006), Literary Walking Tours of Gothic Dublin contains a narrative guide to the many Dublin locales associated with the city's most celebrated sons of gothic writing - Charles Robert Maturin, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, and, of course, Bram Stoker. A pre-publication perusal of its contents warrants the text's unstinting recommendation in advance. For other reviews and details on how to purchase a copy of this authoritative work, please see the promotional leaflet enclosed with this newsletter.

Albert concluded his address on 11th April by recording special thanks to Leslie's daughter, Jill Shepard Glenstrup, who generously and without reservation offered to donate her late father's considerable Bram Stoker-related library to Dublin City Library and Archive, to be housed in the Pearse Street Library; also to professional librarian, author and artist, Seán Lennon, who recommended Pearse Street library over other less suitable alternatives; and to Dr. Máire Kennedy, Divisional Librarian of Special Collections, at Dublin City Library, who accepted the collection in the first instance and organised its painstaking cataloguing. The publicity brochure brought out to mark the arrival of the Leslie Shepard Bram Stoker Collection states: "Several of the included texts bear personally inscribed hand-written dedications to the incomparable and irreplaceable Leslie Shepard." Incomparable and irreplaceable is what Leslie Shepard has been throughout his long and busy life and will ever remain. The Leslie Shepard Bram Stoker Collection is both his legacy and Ireland's tribute to him - a tribute that is undeniably well-merited.

Thanks are due to Dublin-based Wisconsin writer, Brian J. Showers, on two important counts. Firstly, the Bram Stoker Society has at last a website - courtesy of a space on Brian's own website: http://www.brianjshowers.com - click on "Bram Stoker Society". Brian's website is well worth a thorough browse in its own right, and it also has a range of rapidly expanding interesting links. Secondly, Brian, assisted by expert webmaster Anna-Lena Yngve, has all but completed the transferring of the thirteen Bram Stoker Society Journals (1989-2001) on to an attractively presented CD-ROM. The jewel-case illustration is from Carmilla by acclaimed Irish artist and illustrator Jonathan Barry, to whom we wish to extend our thanks for permission to use his artwork. Those interested in purchasing a copy of the CD-ROM of all thirteen journals, comprehensively indexed and with a specially written history of the Bram Stoker Society by Albert Power should forward to the latter, at 43 Castle Court, Killiney Hill Road, Killiney, Co. Dublin, Ireland a cheque or bank draft in the amount of either €30.00, US$30.00 or £20.00 stg. Price is inclusive of postage. For further details, please see the promotional leaflet enclosed with this newsletter. Please not - not available till June!

Despite the foregoing activity, and the expressed interest of a very small group of enthusiasts, the future of the Bram Stoker Society as an active entity is uncertain. It takes considerable enterprise - not to mention cost - to produce new journals in published format. Furthermore, there are at the moment other reputable outlets for the publication of the kind of material that formerly saw print in the Bram Stoker Society Journal - not least, All Hallows, the journal of the Ghost Story Society, edited by Barbara Roden of Ash-Tree Press - http://www.ash-tree.bc.ca/GSS.html - and Wormwood, edited by Mark Valentine of Tartarus Press - http://www.tartaruspress.com. Those interested in contributing to the future activities of the Bram Stoker Society should contact Albert Power or Brian J. Showers at the e-mail addresses given on the website.