Bram Stoker: History, Psychoanalysis, and the Gothic (review)

Bram Stoker: History, Psychoanalysis and the Gothic, edited by William Hughes and Andrew Smith; pp. vii + 229. Basingstoke: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's Press, £42.50, $55.00.

The twelve essays in this collection go a long way toward correcting the mistaken impression that Bram Stoker wrote only a single Gothic work, Dracula (1897), or, more damaging, that he was a second-rate writer whose neurosis erupted into a modern myth. Indeed the Preface announces that "Stoker's work blends the Gothic with the discourses of politics, sexuality, medicine and national identity to produce texts that may be read by a variety of critical methodologies" (ix), and the accompanying essays demonstrate how Stoker blends the Gothic with fields that seem antithetical to its preoccupation with mystery--politics, medicine, and science, to mention a few.

A must for people interested in either Dracula or Stoker, this book should also be on the shelves of scholars of both turn-of-the-century thought and the Gothic. Moreover, students of literature and science should examine the essay by Marie Mulvey-Roberts, which looks at how Stoker blends his awareness of medical practices with his concerns about the New Woman. Literary historians will appreciate Victor Sage's examination of Stoker's treatment of the Serbian crisis in The Lady of the Shroud (1909). Finally, those concerned with Irish Studies will appreciate Alison Milbank's essay on the connection between Stoker and Anglo-Irish Gothic.

While the title will alert potential readers to some of the diverse topics covered in various essays--Stoker, history, psychoanalysis, and the Gothic--the book should also interest those involved with cultural studies and/or questions of canonicity. Indeed, the introductory essay by William Hughes and Andrew Smith, appropriately titled "Bram Stoker, the Gothic and the Development of Cultural Studies," is extremely thought- provoking. Beginning with F. R. Leavis's concept of the "great tradition," it asks readers to think about the shifting nature of the literary canon, moves to consider the "open- ended and methodologically pluralist practice of Cultural Studies," and ultimately demonstrates Dracula's importance to that field: "An important text already in consequence of its participation in critical discourse after Leavis, Dracula is likely to continue as a central object for analysis in cultural studies as both novel and film adaptation" (5).

Among the contributors is Joseph S. Bierman, who wrote one of the first critical essays on Dracula. Currently associate professor of psychiatry and pediatrics as well as a practicing psychoanalyst, Bierman is also editing Stoker's working notes for Dracula. He is thus ideally suited to perform a psychoanalytical study of Stoker. Experts on the Gothic include Jerrold E. Hogle, Maggie Kilgour, Milbank, Mulvey-Roberts, David Punter, Sage, and Smith. Their articles place Stoker solidly within the English Gothic tradition. Essays by Clare A. Simmons, "Fables of Continuity: Bram Stoker and Medievalism," and Lisa Hopkins, "Crowning the King, Mourning His Mother," provide different contexts for Stoker's works. Ideally suited to edit the collection are Smith, who wrote Dracula and the Critics (1996), and Hughes, who has written a number of articles on Stoker as well as having compiled Bram Stoker: A Bibliography (1997), an essential work for those interested in Stoker the writer. Despite some unevenness among the essays, all twelve offer valuable insights. Although I disagreed with certain points, something in every essay piqued my curiosity and made me reconsider Stoker and his works.

The essays in this volume and the editorial apparatus ask readers to consider Stoker as more than the writer of Dracula. Indeed, the editors observe: "As many of the essays in this volume testify, the future of Stoker criticism, whatever its methodology, will be in part preoccupied with the breaking down of this further critical barrier" (5). While the book does not positively fail in its promise to break down this barrier, it does continue to overemphasize Dracula at the expense of Stoker's other work. The writer of eighteen...