Books and Manuscripts

[Literature] Stoker, Bram
Dracula
New York: Doubleday & McClure Co., 1899. First American edition. 8vo. (ii), ix, (i), 378 pp.; with half-title. Presentation copy, inscribed by Stoker on front paste-down, “George C Thayer / from / Bram Stoker / 18.12.99”. Publisher’s beige pictorial cloth, stamped in blue, olive, and in gilt, spine and boards darkened, scattered soiling to boards, spine ends chipped, loss in cloth of upper rear joint; top edge trimmed, other edges untrimmed; scattered minor soiling and spotting to text. Dalby 10(b)

Scarce presentation copy of the first American edition of Bram Stoker’s iconic horror novel. Inscribed by Stoker to George Chapman Thayer (1860-1923), a shipbuilding engineer, President of the Kensington Shipyard Co., and captain of the First City Troop of Philadelphia. In October, 1899, Bram Stoker (1847-1912) traveled from England to the United States with the Lyceum Theatre Company as assistant to veteran English stage actor Sir Henry Irving (1838-1905), for his performance in Victorien Sardou’s Robespierre. Stoker was the longtime business manager of Irving’s West End Lyceum Theatre. Two years earlier in London, in 1897, he published the first edition of what would later be considered his masterpiece, Dracula. Irving is now understood to have been the chief inspiration for Stoker’s famous vampire, and it was during this North American tour that the first American edition of the novel was published, in November, 1899. Stoker most likely inscribed the book for Thayer several weeks later while he was in Philadelphia, where Robespierre had a two-week run at the Chestnut Street Opera House, beginning on December 11.

Never before offered for sale. Inscribed or signed versions of this book rarely come to market, and we can locate only four other inscribed or signed copies in the available auction record.