London Calling. London Walks connecting. This is London. This is London Walks. Streets Ahead.
Story time.
History time.
Ok, let’s get on with it.
A tall dark stranger arrived in London on May 26th, 1897 carrying a great deal of luggage, several unfortunate habits, and one of the best publicity campaigns in literary history.
He came ashore in a box.
So, yes, today’s story begins in Victorian London with fog, gaslight, horse manure, yellow brick, hansom cabs, flower girls, penny dreadfuls, boiled cabbage, velvet curtains, spiritualists, sewer smells, and a new arrival from Eastern Europe who turns out to have terrible table manners.
Dracula.
Published on this day, May 26th, 1897.
And what a London story it is.
Because although people think of Dracula as Transylvania, wolves, castles, moonlight and bats, the truth is the Count’s great target was London. Not Romania.
London.
The biggest city on earth.
The richest city on earth.
The busiest port on earth.
The capital of an empire so vast that at any given moment somewhere in it the sun was rising, somewhere else it was setting, and somewhere else a British official was complaining about the weather.
London was the beating heart of the modern world. And Bram Stoker knew it.
So naturally that’s where Dracula heads.
Like every ambitious immigrant in history.
And specifically he heads for Piccadilly.
Which is deliciously funny when you think about it.
Count Dracula, Prince of Darkness, Lord of the Undead, stalking about the West End looking for property opportunities.
Estate agent to Dracula:
“Well, Count, this one’s got excellent transport links.”
And yes, he buys a house.
Number 347 Piccadilly.
Practically round the corner from where the Ritz would soon rise.
You can almost imagine him drifting through Victorian Piccadilly muttering, “Location, location, location.”
And here’s where London enters the bloodstream of the story.
Because Stoker understood something crucial. Horror works best when it walks into familiar streets.
Not fantasyland.
Not once-upon-a-time.
But recognisable London.
Piccadilly.
The Strand.
Fleet Street.
Charing Cross.
Places his readers knew.
Places they walked.
Places where, after reading the book, they might suddenly glance over their shoulder.
That’s the trick.
And Stoker was no fool.
He practically toured London in his imagination while writing it.
Now Bram Stoker himself was Irish. Born in Dublin. Worked for the great actor-manager Sir Henry Irving at the Lyceum Theatre, right there on Wellington Street near the Strand. That theatre was one of the wonders of Victorian London. Vast crowds. Velvet. Gaslight. Thunderous melodrama. Irving sweeping onstage looking like a supernatural being himself.
Many people think Irving partly inspired Dracula.
Tall.
Aquiline.
Hypnotic.
Theatrical.
A man who entered rooms as if he owned the oxygen.
And Stoker, night after night, watched him dominate audiences.
You can see how the vampire count started forming.
By the way, Dracula itself. The name.
This is lovely.
“Dracula” comes from the Romanian word dracul.
Which means dragon.
Or devil.
Depending on context.
Already we’re in wonderfully murky territory.
The historical Dracula, Vlad III, belonged to an order called the Order of the Dragon.
His father was Vlad Dracul.
Vlad the Dragon.
Or Vlad the Devil.
And Dracula basically means “son of Dracul.”
Son of the Dragon.
Or son of the Devil.
Take your pick.
Neither exactly reassures.
And Stoker found the name in a book in Whitby.
Whitby! Another great British location in this gloriously eccentric tale.
He was holidaying there in 1890 when inspiration struck. Whitby gave him the graveyard on the cliff, the black dog imagery, the storm, the shipwreck atmosphere.
But London gave him the prey.
And Victorian London was perfect prey.
Because beneath all the confidence and imperial swagger there was anxiety everywhere.
Fear of foreigners.
Fear of disease.
Fear of degeneration.
Fear of sex.
Especially sex.
Victorian London was outwardly buttoned-up and respectable. Underneath, goodness me. Panic and appetite bubbling away like a stew left too long on the stove.
And Dracula glides straight into all that repression like a knife through blancmange.
The novel is practically one long invasion panic.
Eastern European aristocrat arrives in England bringing corruption, contagion, nocturnal habits and highly irregular neck behaviour.
And London readers ate it up.
Though perhaps “ate it up” is not the ideal phrase in the circumstances.
Now here’s another delicious London detail.
One of the creepiest scenes in the book takes place in Hampstead Heath.
Lucy Westenra, drifting about at night.
The Heath.
Mist.
Darkness.
Something out there among the trees.
And if you know Hampstead Heath you’ll know that even now, in certain weather, especially near the ponds or the older tree-lined paths, it can feel gloriously gothic.
London still keeps a little corner reserved for Dracula.
And then there’s Carfax Abbey.
Dracula’s lair.
Usually identified with a spot near Purley in South London.
Imagine that.
The undead count lurking in suburban South London.
Not quite the image Hollywood sells us.
Though perhaps there’s something especially British about that.
Ultimate evil.
Just beyond Croydon.
Meanwhile London itself in 1897 was roaring away around the novel.
Omnibuses rumbling.
Newsboys shouting headlines.
The Underground already operating.
Music halls booming.
Telegraph wires humming.
And into this modern city Stoker inserts ancient evil.
That contrast is one reason the book still works.
Dracula is medieval nightmare colliding with modern London.
Crucifixes versus shorthand typists.
Garlic versus blood transfusions.
Ancient superstition versus the latest railway timetables.
And London sits right at the collision point.
Which brings us to the really funny thing.
For all its horror, Dracula is also deeply camp.
Oh unquestionably.
Capes.
Moonlight.
Smouldering stares.
Women in flowing nightdresses wandering about in trance states.
Men dramatically declaring, “The blood is the life!”
It’s gloriously excessive.
Victorian gothic with the volume knob snapped off.
And London, theatrical London especially, embraced it immediately.
The city that adored melodrama fell head over heels for the Count.
Which is why, nearly 130 years later, Dracula still belongs partly to London.
To the Lyceum.
To Piccadilly.
To Hampstead Heath.
To foggy streets and gas lamps and late-night hansoms rattling across wet cobbles.
So if you’re walking home tonight through Piccadilly or Hampstead and you happen to notice a tall pale gentleman in evening dress keeping to the shadows…
well…
mind your neck.
See you tomorrow.