Stoker: A Literary Life

Given the great awareness of and the mountainous amount of commentary on Dracula, Lisa Hopkins’s book is refreshing for paying attention to all of Stoker’s literary output (eighteen books total). Being part of the Literary Lives series does not diminish Hopkins’s book’s usefulness, but makes it a compact, readable reference work for those interested in Stoker.

Hopkins charts signal events in Stoker’s life, assesses each of the books, offers in her list of works cited useful leads to further pursuit of Stoker and his art. Though Dracula is not the center of Hopkins’s attention, she does argue that all Stoker’s fiction shares some one or another affinity(ies) with that novel, and, perhaps, with Stoker’s personal life. A spectrum of contemporary approaches to literary studies—ranging from Stoker’s ambiguities concerning mothers and motherhood (which link with monstrousness) on through political, religious, social, sexual, and gender issues—makes illuminating reading.

Although nobody has ever directly made the point, reading Hopkins’s book made me think of Stoker’s fiction as far more naturalistic, what with its characters whose makeup draws close the borders of human and animal traits (most notable, perhaps, in The Lair of the White Worm and Dracula, though employed elsewhere, too). After all, Stoker was writing during the era when literary Naturalism was as much in the minds of readers as was supernatural or paranormal fiction. Many of the so-called bleak realists of the day turned now and again to such concerns, e. g., Ella D’Arcy, Caldwell Lipsett, M. P. Shiel, W. Carleton Dawe, May Sinclair, E. Nesbit, Wilde and Yeats.

With unshakable evidence that Hopkins commands acute awareness of and sensitivity to Stoker’s own life and works, as well as to a formidable quantity of secondary material, her arguments provide valid approaches to Stoker’s writings. Interrelations among Stoker’s books are illuminating (Count Dracula may be a stellar vampire, but other Stoker characters certainly manifest vampiric traits as they try to overpower the wills and bodies of those with whom they interact). Hopkins’s prose is eminently readable, not tortuous with jargon readily accessible to only the few of an elite audience. It’s refreshing to see so much packed into such a compact space. In sum, this book must not be left off the shelf of essential works about Stoker and his art.