Dublin and the theatre
Stoker was born in Clontarf near Dublin. He attended Trinity College, where he became an accomplished athlete and took an active part in its debating societies. Civil-service work at Dublin Castle overlapped with his studies. He later inspected local courts and wrote a handbook for their clerks. At the same time, unpaid theatre reviewing gave him a place in Dublin’s cultural life.
His admiration for Henry Irving led to a professional relationship. In 1878, shortly after marrying Florence Balcombe, Stoker moved to London to become the actor’s manager. He handled correspondence, touring and the business of the Lyceum Theatre for many years while continuing to write. When he died in 1912, his association with Irving still occupied a larger place in obituaries than the vampire novel that would become his most enduring work.
Fairy tales before Dracula
Under the Sunset appeared before Dracula and addresses a younger audience. Its imagined country gives moral choices and human feelings fantastic forms. The opening tale describes a realm beyond ordinary experience, while the dedication to Stoker’s son makes the family setting of the collection explicit. Its fairy-tale voice offers a different treatment of darkness and danger from his later Gothic novel.
The copy held here carries an 1882 title page and credits illustrations to W. Fitzgerald and W. V. Cockburn. A Bodleian accession mark records its arrival in December 1881. The title date and accession date describe different moments in the history of this copy. The pictures belong to the two named illustrators, while the stories form part of the varied literary career Stoker sustained alongside his theatre work.
