Celebrate Poe

The Manipulative “Lover”

September 21, 2021 George Bartley Season 1 Episode 76
Celebrate Poe
The Manipulative “Lover”
Show Notes Transcript

This episode deals with the "dominant/slave" - relationship between Sir Henry Irving and Bram Stoker.  Irving acts as the autocratic figure while the submissive Stoker obeys him without question.  (sounds creepy!) Many scholars believe (with good reason) that Irving served as the model for Dracula.   Listen to this podcast, and decide for yourself!

Episode Seventy Six - The Manipulative “Lover”

  • Who was Sir Henry Irving?
  • Why is Irving called the “other” man in Stoker’s life?
  • How is Henry Irving like Dracula?
  • How was Irving an autocrat?
  • How could Irving be a real SOB?
  • How is Thomas Dunn English the model for Fortunado?
  • How is Fortunado NOT fortunate?
  • How did Poe bury Thomas Dunn English alive - over and over?


  • 00:00 Introduction
  • 02:00  First meeting between Stoker and Irving
  • 03:45  Irving’s wife
  • 04:50  1898 Recording of Irving’s voice
  • 05:57  Stoker’s position 
  • 07:49 Stoker and Oscar Wilde
  • 09:20 Stoker’s feelings
  • 11:06 Irving’s knighthood
  • 12:21 Primary sources about Irving
  • 15:30 Metaphorically a vampire
  • 17:30 Dracula's similarity to Irving
  • 18:21 Dreadful! 
  • 20:33 Life after Irving
  • 22:25 Thomas Dunn English and West Virginia
  • 20:26 Cask of Amontillado and character motive
  • 26:41 Conclusion 
  • 28:13 Sources
  • 30:34 Future Episodes
  • 31:23 Outro

00:00 Introduction

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - a examination of the life, works, and times of America’s Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe. This podcast also looks at some of the many influences ON Poe’s writing, as well as some of the countless writers who have been influenced BY Poe.  This is episode Seventy 
Six - The Manipulative ‘Lover”

And if you have any comments or questions please contact me at celebratepoe@gmail.com.  I really welcome and treasure any comments of suggestions you might have, so please do not hesitate to email me at celebratepoe@gmail.com

Today should be the last episode of Celebrate Poe before we really get into the novel Dracula.  This current episode is largely about Henry Irving - one of the greatest actors of his time, an incredibly manipulative person, and - according to some scholars - the MAIN man in Bram Stoker’s life - Walt Whitman from the last episode being a candidate for the OTHER man. And yes, it is said that Henry Irving was a also major influence on the character of Dracula.  Stick with me for the story of a relationship that could be described as not only complex, but downright creepy.

2:00  First meeting between Stoker and Irving

The previous episode dealt briefly with Stoker as a young writer - especially his friendship with Walt Whitman.  Stoker also wrote theatre reviews for a local newspaper, and it was his review of actor Henry Irving in Hamlet that resulted in a MEETING with the actor.   In Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving, Stoker wrote about that meeting in glowing terms:- In those moments of our mutual emotion he too had found a friend and knew it. Soul had looked into soul ! From that hour began a friendship as profound, as close, as lasting as can be between two men. 

Physically, Henry Irving was a tall and slender figure.  He was about 6′ 2″—approximately the same height as Bram Stoker - and this was at a time when the average height for an adult male was 5 foot 6 inches.  Unlike Bram Stoker, Henry Irving wore his hair longer than most people of the time.  Henry Irving had a clean-shaven chin - at a time when most men sported beards.  Perhaps most unusual was the fact that he had a long, sensitive face, and a dominant, almost sarcastic presence as though he was looking down on you.  From his pictures, I could easily see him as a Dracula character - who is intimidating, but also fascinating.

3:45 Irving’s wife

In 1869, he married the beautiful Florence O’Callaghan in London, but it quickly became obvious that his personal life was going to take second place to his professional life.  On the opening night of his great sucesss The Bells - and this The Bells has nothing to do with Poe’s poem - Florence, who was pregnant with their second child, began to criticize his profession.   Now he had become an overnight sensation in The Bells and was praised all over London.  Florence burst his balloon with “Are you going on making a fool of yourself like this all your life?”  And with that, she stopped the carriage, walked off into the mist, and decided to never see her husband again. In future years, Henry Irving seldom saw his children until they became older.  Florence never wanted anything to do with him in the future, but never divorced Henry Irving.  However refuse his money or the staus she recieved as Lady Irving when her husband was later knighted.

TRANSITION

4:50  1898 Recording of Irving’s voice

I found an actual 1898 recording of Henry Irving delivering the first lines of Shakespeare’s Richard III.  Due to the recording’s age, I am going to read the words first to make them easier to understand when you hear them -
Now is the winter of our discontent, Made glorious summer by this son of York.
Now is the winter of our discontent, Made glorious summer by this son of York.

5:57  Stoker’s position

Bram Stoker later married nineteen-year-old Dublin beauty Florence Lemon Balcombe (who had previously been courted by Oscar Wilde) Soon afterwards, Stoker accepted a position as the manager of Irving’s new Lyceum Theatre in London.
Now Stoker’s responsibilities at the Lyceum included arranging provincial seasons and overseas tours, keeping financial records, and acting as Irving’s secretary. Bram Stoker organized the Lyceum’s eight North American tours, during which he met and befriended Walt Whitman (whose poetry he had defended as an undergraduate at Trinity) and Mark Twain.
Now this is where it gets really strange - or one of the MANY strange things about Henry Irving.   Many serious scholars have written that Stoker’s friendship with Irving was “the most important love relationship of his adult life.”  In my research, I got the feeking that Stoker was quite needy - Irving, on the other hand, was quite self-absorbed, and seemed to be able to easily manipulate his friend - if you can call their relationship a friendship. Like some individuals in political life today, Irving seem to enjoy rivalries among his followers and dividing people to establish his goals.  It was said that Irving had extremely fickle affections and wishes.  Many scholars write that when Stoker began writing Dracula, he was thinking of Henry Irving - sort of a tribute in reverse - as a way that Stoker could express his unconscious feelings.

And if you listened to the previous episode about Stoker’s feelings about Walt Whitman and emotions in general, you know that Bram Stoker had his share of feelings that he was afraid to express.

7:49  Stoker and Oscar Wilde

I guess this is as good a place as any to briefly - very briefly - mention that other individual who may have played a part in establishing the character of Dracula.  That person is Oscar Wilde - now both Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker were from Dublin, attended Trinity College, and at one time even dated the same lady.  Oscar Wilde was quite flamboyant - a real flamer.  I think  it is pretty obvious that Oscar Wilde was far more open about feelings  - emotions that Bram Stoker was afraid to express.

For example, after Wilde’s trial for indecent exposure, Bram became a staunch advocate for a movement to put any homosexual writer in jail. It was as though if he were anti-gay enough, then no would suspect him of his deep dark secret.

And as a former scared to death closet case from the Southern part of the United States, I understand that kind of unhealthy logic.

Kinda like the homosexual Republican politicians who become the most stridently anti-homosexual - until they are caught in an uncompromising position.  I hesitate to use the word gay for a such closeted homosexual because pride connotates honesty and self-acceptance in who you are.

Anyway,

9:20 Stoker’s feelings


According to Louis S. Sullivan in Buffalo Bill Meets Dracula: William F. Cody, Bram Stoker, and the Frontiers of Racial Decay, Stoker’s friendship with Irving became 'the most important love relationship of his adult life.’" Irving, however, "… was a self-absorbed and profoundly manipulative man. He enjoyed cultivating rivalries between his followers, and to remain in his circle required constant, careful courting of his notoriously fickle affections.”

But it seemed to work out - especially at first  Stoker was a thoroughly educated man and a gifted manager with a head for figures. Irving’s theater, the Lyceum, blossomed under Stoker’s careful and devoted attention. Yet despite all his talents and hard work, Stoker never sought attention or acclaim.  The theatre often kept him away from his wife and child for months at a time.  Oh, not surprisingly, they named their son Irving.

TRANSITION MUSIC

Someone once asked Irving if he had a college degree. "No,” he answered “but I have a secretary who has two." The “secretary” he spoke of so dismissively was Stoker.  This seemingly symbiotic relationship—Irving as master, Stoker the humble servant —went on for decades.

11:06 Irving’s knighthood

Henry Irvings’ theatre thrived, and in 1895, he became the first actor to be awarded a knighthood - so he had really arrived!  Remember that Sir Henry Irving had never remarried. He and his wife had been living apart - in other words practically divorced for all intents and purposes.  But his wife had no compunction about becoming a member of English society because of her husband’s awards. She now styled herself as “Lady Irving.”

Today there are hundreds of English actors who have been knighted - seven of the most well known include Sir Charlie Chaplain, Sir Mick Jagger, Sir ian Mckellen, Sir Elton John, Sir Alfred Hitchcock, Sir Paul McCartney, and Sir Sean Connery.  But back then to be an accomplished actor and be knighted for those accomplishments was unheard of.

12:21 Primary sources about Irving

I checked on some of the books now in the public domain about Henry Irving - to be honest, most of them were written in a rather flowery Victorian style, and bent over backwards to give glowing reports of Henry Irving’s acting - as though he could do no wrong. i ran across one rather lengthy study written by William Archer entitled Henry Irving, Actor and Manager, a Critical Study.  I was hoping that Archer’s study  might give a honest and thorough critique.  The edition I saw was an exact reproduction of the copy now at the University of Toronto published in 1899.  I wasn’t about to read the whole document - the main thing I wanted to know about was what did the book say about Bram Stoker’s role in Henry Irving’s theatrical success.  I did a find on Stoker and then Bram, and there wasn’t a single mention of Bram Stoker.

But the author of the book did write this about Henry Irving, :

A dozen newspapers and magazines have given descriptions of Irving's autocratic manner of conducting rehearsals, and a pamphlet might be made up of his sometimes sarcastic, sometimes humorous, rebukes of those who failed promptly to do his behests. Everybody who has attended a rehearsal at the Lyceum has however, been impressed by the man's extraordinary patience, by the enormous pains which he takes in the smallest matters. In this connection, the impression produced on the mind of Edwin Booth is interesting. " As a stage-manager,'' said Booth, " he is despotic. He sits on the stage during rehearsals, watching every
movement and listening to every word. If he sees anything to correct or alter, he rises and points out the fault, giving the proper form, when the scene is repeated. He commands all points, with an understanding that his will is absolute law, that it is not to be disputed, whether it concerns the entry of a mere messenger who bears a letter, or whether it is the
reading of an important line. From first to last he rules the stage with an iron will,

Kinda sounds like he is damming Irving with faint praise.

Now Charles Hiatt wrote a lengthy study of Sir Henry Irving in 1899 called  Henry Irving, A Record and Review.  The author even mentions Bram Stoker - tho he doesn’t go into detail.  Charles Hiatt briefly writes Of course, every department of Irving*s great enterprise has not been directed by himself alone. In Mr. Bram Stoker, Mr. Loveday, and Mr. Charles Howson he has had lieutenants of remarkable ability and untiring energy.

 But there is no question that Bram Stoker never got the praise and acclaim he deserved - however he seemed ok with that - at least outwardly.  But the case has been made that Sir Henry Irving was metaphorically like a vampire - preying on the weaknesses of those around him and sucking their energy out for his own selfish needs.

15:30 Metaphorically a vampire

According to historian Barbara Belford in her book Bram Stoker: A Biography of the Author of Dracula, - the seemingly symbiotic relationship—Irving as vainglorious master, Stoker the humble servant—went on for decades. “Being anywhere with Irving was contentment for Stoker.

However, Stoker continued to write, scribbling on scraps of paper in the few moments he wasn’t working or spending with Irving. By the way, the relationships between Stoker and his wife, and between Irving and his wife, had long since grown cold. Stoker and Irving spent far more time together.

And in 1897, those scraps became the book we know as Dracula.

17:30 Similarity to Irving

Now Dracula was the story of a naïve young middle-class man, Jonahan Harker, held prisoner by Count Dracula, a powerful, sensual, but mysterious ruler. Was that meant - even on an unconcious level - to mirror the relationship between Stoker and Irving?

In describing Dracula, the character of Jonathan Harker wrote in his fictional journal - "His face was a strong—a very strong—aquiline,”“with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils, with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion."

Doctor Belford writes "Somewhere in [Stoker's] creative process," "Dracula became a sinister caricature of Irving as mesmerist and depleter, an artist draining those about him to feed his ego. It was a stunning but avenging tribute.”

Dreadful! 18:21

I personally think that one of the most insensitive things that Sir Henry Irving did regarding Bram Stocker - and that is saying a lot - took place just after the first presentation of the play version of Dracula at the Lyceum Theatre.  You see, Stoker was concerned about protecting the theatrical rights to the novel he had been working on.  So he quickly shaped it into a script, and organized a basic staged reading at the Lyceum.  Certainly future versions could have all kinds of special effects, and Dracula had the potential to be incredibly popular.  And the public ate up tales of horror.

By then, Irving was one of the most famous actors of the Victorian era, and Stoker was offering him the lead role in staged version of Dracula - the role of a lifetime in a sure fire hit.

There is no way that Irving could NOT have known that Dracula was not important to Stoker - and it seems to me that he would have accepted the role just on the basis of friendship - or at least SHOULD have,

But Irving watched the performance from the audience and quietly retreated to his dressing room.

Stoker nervously found the actor, and asked him, “How did you like it?”  i can just imagine Stoker holding his breath - waiting for Irving’s reply.  The man’s opinion meant so much to him and Stoker’s hopes were resting on what Irving said.

Irving made a dramatic gesture of dismissal as though he was squashing a bothersome bug, and said, “Dreadful.”  It was almost as though Irving knew that Stoker had created a character based on the manipulative and autocratic Irving.

20:33 Life after Irving

Two years later, Irving sold the Lyceum theatre without informing Stoker.

When Irving was 67 years old, he began appearing as Sir Thomas Becket at another theatre.  During the play he uttered Beckett’s dying words ‘Into thy hands. O Lord, into thy hands.  Those words were also Irving’s last words.  He had a stroke and died an hour later.

After Sir Henry Irving’s death, Bram Stoker wrote a length two volume set by the name of Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving.  Not surprisingly, Stoker praised his subject quite highly.  But the book was criticized by some critics for containing too much information on Stoker.  The public wanted to read about Sir Henry - who was basically viewed as a superstar. According to the New York Times Saturday Review of Books in its October 20, 1906 issue "Almost every one criticizes it here because, though it is called a book about Irving, it is really a book about Stoker and Irving. There is something naively appealing in the way Mr. Stoker seems to suppose the public will be equally interested in himself and the great actor."  Actually, today most modern readers are far more interested inthe author of Dracula, and the only reason that most people read Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving is because of Bram Stoker.

Stoker was to also suffer a stroke.  He could hardly see for several months. He never fully recovered and never achieved fame or fortune during his own lifetime. His great book only made fortunes for others after his death.

22:25 Thomas Dunn English and West Virginia

I’d like to take a little sidebar and talk about the real life inspiration for another literary character usually perceived as villainous - Montressour from the Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe.

It all started when I was doing a historical presentation as Edgar Allan Poe in the great state of West Virginia.  I was trying to find any connection of Edgar Allan Poe to the central part of the area of Virginia that later became West Virginia - Poe had visited the northern part  of the area that became West Virginia and written about Harper’s Ferry.  And you may remember from this podcast that Poe and the Allan family visited the resort area of White Sulphur Springs in the southern part of the area that later became West Virginia when Poe was just a boy.   Forgive the cumbersome use of “the area that was to become West Virginia” because the fact was that there WAS no state of West Virginia.  It was all Virginia. West Virginia did not become a separate state until 1863 - almost 15 years after Poe’s death in Baltimore.

But anyway, I was doing some research at the library at West Virginia University, and ran across a mention of a man by the name of Thomas Dunn English. Poe and English were good friends until the two fell out due to a public scandal regarding Poe’s alcoholism and rumors regarding several of the ladies with whom Poe had become involved.  And Thomas Dunn English, a person of many interests, later became the first mayor of Logan, West Virginia - a small town about an hour away from Charleston in the center of the state.

20:26 Cask of Amontillado and character motive

Now getting back to Poe - in a future episode this podcast will examine the background behind The Cask of Amontillado in more detail - but now I want to emphasize how the bad feelings between Edgar Allan Poe and Thomas Dunn English inspired Poe to create the character of Fortunado in the story.
By the way, Fortunado was NOT very fortunate - so you could say Poe gave him an ironic name.

In the plot of The Cask of Amontillado, the character of Montressor convinces Fortunado to go into a cavern and examine some fine wines.
While there, Montressor begins to build a wall around Fortunado, and when Monstressor is finished with the wall, he leaves Fortunado behind the wall to basically starve to death.

No, this doesn’t have the violent impact of a Elizabeth Bathory forcing her servants to eat parts of their own bodies or an impalement by Vlad the Impaler - and if you have been listening to past episodes, you know what I mean.  But I can’t imagine a worse way to die that have your body slowly consume itself while you are surrounded by silent darkness, and have no conception of time. 

Poe could be an extremely vindictive person, and he even sued Thomas Dunn English for libel - and won - being awarded several hundred dollars. This was more money than Poe ever earned from any of his writings. It is said that Poe used his feelings of revenge for Thomas Dunn English in creating the literary character of Fortunado.  So whenever anyone reads that story, it is almost as though Poe is burying Fortunado alive - over and over and over again.

26:41 Conclusion


In a similar way, it is said that Bram Stoker expressed his complicated feelings towards Sir Henry Irving by creating the character of Dracula.

i think it is interesting that one of the main characters of Dracula is Dr. Abraham Van Helsing - a lonely but quietly brilliant man who is somehow able to take charge of the out-of-control chaos and evil    caused by Dracula.  If Dracula is a reflection of aspects of Henry Irving, then Abraham Van Helsing can be viewed as a reflection of aspects of Bram Stoker - whose first name was also Abraham.

Dracula, like almost all literary works, on some level may have depended on sources that Bram Stoker may not have even realized. It seems that there were dynamics taking place in Stoker’s life that even HE could not have articulated - except on a confused emotional level.  His relationship with Sir Henry Irving may seen illogical - and even dysfunctional - to us today - but that - friendship or love or manipulation or need for dominance or humiliation  or whatever it was - may have very well have resulted in one of the most complex of all literary creations.

28:13 Sources

Sources for this episode include (and this is quite a list) Punish with Impunity: Poe, Thomas Dunn English, and “The Cask of Amontillado” by Richard Dilworth Rust from The Edgar Allan Poe Review,  Dead Brides; Vampire Tales by Edgar Allan Poe with a foreword by H.P. Lovecraft, In Search of Dracula: A True History of Dracula and Vampire Legends by Radu R. Florescu and Raymond T. McNally, Legends of Dracula by Tom Streissguth, The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe, The Poe Log: A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe, 1809–1849 by Dwight Thomas and David K.Jackson, The Vampire Book by Sally Regan, The Vampire in Legend, Fact, and Art by Basil Cooper, Dracula by Bram Stoker, Encyclopedia of the Vampire: The Living Dead in Myth, Legend, and Popular Culture, by Louis S. Sullivan, and Buffalo Bill Meets Dracula: William F. Cody, Bram Stoker, and the Frontiers of Racial Decay by Louis S. Sullivan.

Why not visit my podcast web site at celebratepoe.buzzsprout.com - click on the episode you want to learn more about to see its show notes and a transcript.

A word about the transcript for each episode - I always write out a script for each episode and include it on the episode’s webpage.  It did not occur to me at first, but a great way of going through an episode is to click on the transcript button for the specific episode that you are interested in.  Then you can follow the text for that episode as you hear the corresponding audio.

30:34 Future episodes

Dracula has probably influenced out culture more than any other single horror creature, with the possible exception of Frankenstein.  For the next few weeks I want to concentrate on a few of the many, many vampire movies - from the original written Dracula to Nosferatu to Interview with the Vampire to the Twilight series, among others.

Then Celebrate Poe will specifically cover Poe’s years as a child in England - especially his education .  I am finding some exciting stuff  regarding the information that he learned - especially in the form of classical rhetoric - information that he used to become one of America’s greatest writers.

 31:23 Outro

Thank you for listening to Celebrate Poe.