Newspaper coverage on Jack the Ripper’s seventh murder, 17 November 1888, British Library It is therefore unsurprising that this Victorian fascination with the paranormal was injected into Stoker’s Gothic Literature. Home was known not only for his ability to communicate with spirits, but also for his purported ability to levitate. Seances were a form of entertainment, and Scottish medium Daniel Dunglas Home was a celebrity in his own right. Spiritualism was all the rage in the fashionable parlors of the middle classes in Victorian England. The professor talks of spiritualism and mesmerism, urging Jack to open his mind to all supernatural possibilities. In another scene in the story, vampire hunter Professor Abraham Van Helsing talks to his student, Dr. Supernatural and Murderous Themes: Bram Stoker First edition of Dracula by Bram Stoker, 1897, British Library Made from the herb wormwood, absinthe would induce in Victorian-era imbibers hallucinations and visions, hence its popularity amongst artists such as Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin. Absinthe was a well-known stimulant used by artists during the Victorian era. During this scene, her head swirls with visions of a Romanian princess falling from the castle ramparts into the river below. Part-way through the novel, Stoker’s heroine Mina Murray partakes of some absinthe provided by her supernatural lover. This abbey was to become the inspiration for Dracula’s fortress in Stoker’s story. While enjoying a week’s holiday on the Yorkshire coast, Stoker was intrigued by the ruins of a medieval abbey called Whitby.

If these readings contained elements of horror, then so much the better.Ī Balloon View of London as seen from Hampstead, 1851, via Museum of Londonīram Stoker himself took his inspiration from many factual elements. The thirst for anything salacious was an escape from the rigid morality of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s dominion over the private sphere. Thanks to the inventive minds of the Industrial Revolution, the middle classes enjoyed artificial lighting in their homes, which meant that their evenings could be spent away in their own private parlors, enjoying leisurely pursuits such as reading. Newfound wealth from industry meant that this newly established middle class had something their predecessors never had – leisure time. Stoker was, like so many men and women at that time, a member of Victorian England’s burgeoning middle class, a class that had been established during the Industrial Revolution. One of the greatest creations of Gothic Literature was that of Dracula, brought to life on the page by author Bram Stoker in 1897. Gothic Literature in Queen Victoria’s Industrial Age Daguerreotype of Queen Victoria, c.

Gothic literature story ideas