Durham E-Theses Invasions and Inversions: Representations of Otherness in the Writings of Bram Stoker NEWMAN, ROSALIND How to cite: NEWMAN, ROSALIND (2018) Invasions and Inversions: Representations of Otherness in the Writings of Bram Stoker, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12763/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Invasions and Inversions: Representations of Otherness in the Writings of Bram Stoker Rosalind Newman University College, Durham University A Thesis Presented for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English Studies March 2018 1 Contents Abstract 3 List of Illustrations 4 Statement of Copyright 5 Acknowledgements 6 Chapter One ‘What Sort of Grim Adventure Was It’: Stoker’s Place in Literary History. 7-56 Chapter Two ‘A Savage – but a Cultured Savage’: Stoker and the Imperial Identity. 57-93 Chapter Three ‘The Lord Fights for the Cross Against the Crescent’: Dracula, The Lady of the Shroud, and the Eastern Question. 94-121 Chapter Four ‘The Mystery of that Mysterious Land’: Bram Stoker’s Egypt. 122-155 Chapter Five ‘The New World Was Speaking to the Old’: Stoker’s Glimpse of America. 156-191 Chapter Six ‘Patrick’s Problem Is Fast Finding Its Solution’: Bram Stoker’s Ireland. 192-223 Conclusion ‘Impersonators, Pretenders, Swindlers, and Humbugs of All Kinds’: Stoker Concluded. 224-241 Bibliography 242-261 2 Abstract Invasions and Inversions: Representations of Otherness in the Writings of Bram Stoker Rosalind Newman Bram Stoker has long been defined by a single text: Dracula. The elements that drove this unparalleled success – foremost among them a perverse interest in ‘otherness’ – frequently manifest in Stoker’s other works, however. Building on the exemplary writings of Stokerian scholars such as William Hughes and David Glover, this study aims to expand its literary horizons, providing a comprehensive look at depictions of otherness across the author’s entire literary canon. This study finds its focal point in the twin faces of invasion and inversion. Within these terms are encapsulated many meanings: the balance of what is ‘out there’ and what is ‘in here,’ of what is trying to get out and what is trying to get in, of that which is on the surface and that which resides beneath. This thesis draws on all manner of Stoker’s work – novels, short stories, and non-fiction work – to map the author’s perception of otherness. And although the study may be anchored by region, the ‘representations of otherness’ extend far beyond geographical concerns: the ‘foreignness’ that so unsettles Stoker is far- reaching, often being tied up in wider questions of gendered, religious, or sexual otherness. This thesis forges a connection between a preoccupation with otherness and the author’s own complex national identity, identifying a distinct literary persona created as a form of camouflage. Stoker’s hegemonic performance allows him to engage with questions of otherness from a place of assumed safety, ostensibly identifying as a member of a perceived elite – yet it is doomed to remain incomplete. At heart, Stoker knows the divisions he propagates to be false constructs; after all, he has manipulated them himself in the creation of his authorial persona. For Stoker the true horror exists in his interior: not what is ‘out there’ trying to get in, but what is ‘in here’ trying to get out. 3 List of Illustrations Leonard Raven-Hill, ‘The Boiling Point,’ Punch (2 October 1912). 108 John Tenniel, ‘Cleopatra before Caesar: or, the Egyptian Difficulty,’ Punch, 83 (December 1882), 163. 137 Anon., ‘Turk the Sublime,’ Punch, 110 (7 March 1896), 110. 141 Fredric Remington, ‘Spaniards Search Women on American Steamers,’ New York Journal (1898). 177 Anon., ‘The Cuban Mother,’ The New York Journal (1898). 177 C. Jay Taylor, ‘The Cuban Melodrama,’ Puck, 39/1004 (1896). 178 1900 Census, Bram Stoker, ‘Americans as Actors,’ in A Glimpse of America: And Other Lectures, Interviews and Essays, Richard Dalby, ed. (1909; Essex: Desert Island Books, 2002), 84-92. 183 Anon., ‘Cuban Patriots Rallying Round Their Flag,’ Harper’s Pictorial History of the War with Spain (London: Harper & Brothers, 1899), 17. 185 Grant E. Hamilton, ‘War is Hell,’ Judge (30 April 1898). 185 H. Strickland Constable, ‘Scientific Racism,’ Harper’s Weekly (1899). 202 John Tenniel, ‘The Irish “Vampire,”’ Punch (24 October 1885). 219 Margaret Allen, ‘Bad News in Troubled Times,’ The Freeman’s Journal (1886). 219 Joseph Kenny Meadows, ‘The Irish Frankenstein,’ Punch (4 November 1843). 220 Matt Morgan, ‘The Irish Frankenstein,’ The Tomahawk, 137 (18 December 1869), 278-79. 220 John Tenniel, ‘The Irish Frankenstein,’ Punch (20 May 1882). 222 John Tenniel, ‘Dr M’Jekyll and Mr O’Hyde, Punch (18 August 1888). 222 4 Statement of Copyright The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the author's prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. 5 Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Professor Simon James. His expert knowledge has helped to shape this research, and his unwavering enthusiasm for literature has helped to sustain my own. I would also like to extend my thanks to University College, and to the founders of the Pemberton Doctoral Scholarship for their financial support. Finally, I would like to thank all my friends and colleagues in Durham for an unforgettable four years. 6 Chapter One ‘What Sort of Grim Adventure Was It’: Stoker’s Place in Literary History1 Abraham Stoker, or Bram, as he styled himself, was an eminently Victorian author. His novels are filled with the superficial confidence befitting a member of the greatest empire the modern world had ever seen, yet they are rooted in the growing doubts and fears that characterised his generation. These fears are often intangible. Fears of what is out there threatening to come in, and what is in here threatening to come out – as the title notes, of both invasion and inversion. Within an extensive body of works, written over some forty years, Dracula (1897) has long been regarded as the lone success story.2 Stoker’s pièce-de-resistance has an air of accidental genius about it, imbued with the hopes and fears of a generation. Whether directly or indirectly, it broaches the most controversial issues of its day: foreign invasions, unorthodox sexualities, the decline of Christianity, and the rise of the New Woman. It is a text of enduring popularity; in the one hundred and twenty years since its publication, Dracula has never been out of print.3 It is almost inevitable, then, that critical discussions of Stoker have focused so heavily on Dracula, often paying scant attention to his wider canon. There have been several exceptional discussions of specific aspects of Stoker’s work in recent years – Jimmie Cain’s Bram Stoker and Russophobia: Evidence of the British Fear of Russia in ‘Dracula’ and ‘The Lady of the Shroud’ and Joseph Valente’s Dracula’s Crypt: Bram Stoker, Irishness and the Question of Blood chief amongst them – but these by necessity concentrate on a narrow range of texts, often anchored by Stoker’s two vampiric works.4 David Glover’s Vampires, Mummies and Liberals: Bram Stoker and the Politics of Popular Fiction offers a wider scope of study, mixing its deliberations on the supernatural with considerations of Stoker’s other works.5 1 Bram Stoker, Dracula, A. N. Wilson, ed. (1897; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), 15. 2 Belford goes so far as to remark that ‘out of an oeuvre of eighteen books, only Dracula succeeds as literature.’ Barbara Belford, Bram Stoker and The Man Who Was Dracula (Cambridge: Perseus, 1996), x. 3 David J. Skal, Something in the Blood: The Untold Story of Bram Stoker, the Man Who Wrote ‘Dracula’ (London: W. W. Norton, 2016), 499. 4 Jimmie E. Cain, Bram Stoker and Russophobia: Evidence of the British Fear of Russia in ‘Dracula’ and ‘The Lady of the Shroud’ (Jefferson: McFarland, 2006). Joseph Valente, Dracula’s Crypt: Bram Stoker, Irishness and the Question of Blood (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002). 5 David Glover, Vampires, Mummies, and Liberals: Bram Stoker and the Politics of Popular Fiction (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996). 7 As the title indicates, however, the focal point of this edition is also ultimately the Gothic – the ‘vampires’ and ‘mummies’ for which Stoker is chiefly remembered. This is, to an extent, understandable. Even the greatest Stoker advocate cannot ignore the fact that some of his lesser known works are lesser known for a reason – ‘The Member of the Strand’ (1890), one of his brief forays into poetry, is sycophantic and amateurish, The Primrose Path (1875) is rather sermonising, Miss Betty (1898), a novel derided as a ‘slight sketch of a pure and amiable girl […that] won’t sell a book’ by publisher J. W. Arrowsmith in 1898, hasn’t fared much better with time.6 For every one of these, however, there is a hidden gem: the wickedly macabre ‘The Squaw’ (1893), for instance, or the short story ‘The Man from Shorrox’ (1894), whose Irish vernacular and witty characters paint the author’s homeland in a manner quite distinct from the Ireland of The Snake’s Pass (1890).7 These lesser-known works add another side to the established face of the Dracula author.