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BRAM STOKER

Name: BRAM STOKER
Author: Barbara Belford
ISBN: 0-679-41832-6

A BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR OF DRACULA

by Barbara Belford ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 10, 1996

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A very, well, anemic account of the life of the man who wrote the ultimate vampire tale, from the biographer of Edwardian novelist Violet Hunt (1990). The thinness of this biography isn't totally Belford's fault: Bram Stoker cast himself in a supporting role to the innovative actor Henry Irving. Stoker, a tall, genial, redheaded Irishman (he married the woman who was Oscar Wilde's first love), served with great flair and efficiency as the actor's manager at the Lyceum Theatre. He venerated Irving, and the sorrow of his life was the egocentric actor's failure to acknowledge Stoker's role in his success. But the dearth of primary documentation about Stoker—even his journals seem to record Irving's doings more than his own— force Belford to strain to work her subject into a narrative that centers heavily on Irving, his leading lady, Ellen Terry, and the theatrical life of the era. Belford ends up reading the author's life as a gloss on his one lasting work of fiction, dully tracing every element of the tale to some fact of Stoker's life: The great white mane of Stoker's other idol, Walt Whitman, becomes the white hair of Dracula; the safe where Stoker stored the Lyceum's financial records becomes the safe where Mina's typescript is locked away; Dracula himself is Irving, who sucked the life out of his ``servant'' with no recompense. Yet aside from Stoker's penchant for the occult and doppelgÑngers (the latter shared with his friend Mark Twain), the true sources of the novel in his creativity and emotions remain obscure. As for Dracula itself, it remains a conundrum of violation, rapacious desire, and death under the cloak of Victorian civility. It mirrors the fundamental conundrum of Stoker's life, as posed by a journalist of his time: How could this ``great shambling, good-natured overgrown boy'' have been the author of Dracula? Belford doesn't manage an answer. (87 photos and illustrations)

Pub Date: April 10, 1996

ISBN: 0-679-41832-6

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.