Book Review: “Mr Stoker and the Vampires of the Lyceum” by Matthew Gibson

Overall rating: ★★★☆☆

London, September 1888. Jack the Ripper roams the streets, and the Lyceum Theatre becomes a stage for something far more sinister. In “Mr Stoker and the Vampires of the Lyceum,” Matthew Gibson takes us on a journey through Gothic intrigue and vampiric happenings that will keep readers enthralled until the shocking final scene.

The story revolves around Bram Stoker, the acting manager of the Lyceum Theatre and an aspiring author. When a young actress is attacked beneath the stage, suffering peculiar bite wounds to her neck, Stoker finds himself thrust into the limelight and immersed in a world of vampires. As he becomes increasingly perplexed by the unsettling behavior of Henry Irving, the brilliant but mercurial actor, and Ellen Terry, Irving’s acclaimed leading lady, Stoker’s suspicions grow. Soon, another attack reveals a vicious Prussian baron, returned to London as a vampire seeking revenge.

One of the highlights of “Mr Stoker and the Vampires of the Lyceum” is its atmospheric setting. Gibson masterfully creates a gothic ambiance that immerses readers in the dark and mysterious world of Victorian London. From the dimly lit streets to the eerie corners of the Lyceum Theatre, every scene oozes with tension and suspense.

Gibson’s deep knowledge of Bram Stoker and his work shines through in this novel. The author’s meticulous research is evident in the rich historical details that bring 19th-century London to life. Readers who appreciate a well-crafted historical backdrop will find themselves captivated by the authenticity of the setting.

However, while Gibson’s writing skill is undeniable, “Mr Stoker and the Vampires of the Lyceum” may not be for everyone. The novel’s density of detail can be overwhelming at times, detracting from the overall storytelling experience. The abundance of information slows down the pace, making it a bit of a slog to get through.

That being said, for those who enjoy delving into the intricacies of Victorian literature and have a penchant for immersive storytelling, this book has much to offer. Gibson’s ability to weave together Gothic elements with historical events creates an intriguing narrative that will keep readers engaged until the very last word.

In conclusion, “Mr Stoker and the Vampires of the Lyceum” is a book that showcases Matthew Gibson’s talent as a writer and his deep understanding of Bram Stoker’s works. While its dense detail may hinder some readers’ enjoyment, its atmospheric setting and compelling storyline make it a worthwhile read for fans of historical fiction and Gothic literature.

**ARC Via NetGalley**

Carry on vamping.

A novel exploring the relationship between Dracula's author, Bram Stoker, the actors Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, some apparently real life vampires in London and Jack the Ripper, It sounds irresistible. I wanted also to compare it with Joseph O'Connor's Shadowplay which has some overlap of characters and themes. My advice: read O'Connor. The best way to read this novel is as a joke or comic narrative. It is not especially funny, but it can be read. Better still, don't bother.

A thoroughly enjoyable Victorian fictional romp featuring Bram Stoker and acting legends Henry Irvine and Ellen Terry. As a Kent resident I have visited Ellen Terry’s country home Smallhythe Place and I loved the inclusion of her as a character. Absolutely brilliant and I hope there are more of these books!

Mr Stoker and the Vampires of the Lyceum by Matthew Gibson is about Bram Stoker, Ellen Terry, Henry Irving, and perhaps a dash of the supernatural. This screamed to me, absolutely blared out "Read me! Read me!!" and as such, I should have loved it. I WANTED to love it, but alas....

I can't really go into a lot of details here because it would spoil it, but I was let down on the vampiric aspect and at the same time I felt as though none of the characters are good people, all of them behaving appallingly except perhaps Florence (Bram's poor put-upon wife), but as she is standing in the way of Bram's artistic dreams, she is a bit cruel. I also thought given the subject nature it would be more fast-paced, but I didn't really feel any great urgency and then it wound itself up at the end and that was that.

I received a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

There's a lot of potential, the right gothic atmosphere and a well researched historical background.
But it's also very slow and sometimes made me think of a Stoker's biography more than a paranormal thriller.
Some less info would have made it a gripping story
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I received an advanced reader copy (in digital format) from the author and publisher in return for an honest review.
“ Mr Stoker and the Vampire of the Lyceum” is a novel of historical fiction, imaginatively conceived and written by the author, an acknowledged authority on. Bram Stoker . Could there be anyone in the world English speaking, at least, who does not know of the author of one of the foremost horror novels ever written : Dracula? This book tells the reader much more of the Bram Stoker , his private and public life, all in relation to the genesis for his magnum opus. It is a novel about how the famous novel came to be conceived.
The book is set in the late 19 th century London. Bram Stoker is working as the manager of the Lyceum Theater. Although he is supposed to be studying the law, his main interest was in his writing, which is not earning him a living. It is also the time of a series of brutal murders of women by a mysterious killer who stalks prostitutes. However, London’s night life goes on, and the Lyceum theater is playing to a full house.
Most of the characters named in the book are historically real. Edwin Irving and Ellen Terry were famous stage actors. Bram did have a Doctor brother. All play a significant part in the book, which begins with an actual murder trial of the time. The penny papers are full of lurid stories of a caped fiend in the streets.
The author is quite effective in using a bit of the writing style of the period in telling the story. The slightly florid language in the book is very much like that of Dracula, both the book and movie. The hectic efforts to save the stricken Ellen Terry,, the strange lassitude of Stoker’s wife, the bats swirling around the rooftops and the mad pursuit of to the forbidding castle in the Balkans to put a stake through the beast — all here. The reader can see the inspiration for the brain of Mr Stoker’s most famous book beginning to take root in his imagination.
I found the book very entertaining , with a good sense of plot ,personalities and pacing. Needless to say, fans of the actual book and movies will love this story. Come to think of it, so will readers of mystery novels , as I did.
No offensive or x-rated as to language, sexual themes.

Bram Stoker, the current acting manager of the Lyceum Theatre and future writer of Dracula, finds himself involved in a supernatural matter when crimes seemingly related to vampiric activity start happening in London. I expected something a little bit different from this. It technically has a lot of elements that I enjoy but the way the were assembled was a failure, like putting together a puzzle without looking at the reference picture.

My two biggest issues were details and pacing, the two being closely linked in this case. I think the author knows a lot about Bram Stoker and the context in which he lived. You can notice this in all the details he chose to add to the story, and while they help set the scene and transport the reader to the appropriate place and time there were just too many of them. They dragged the story down, I did not need to know all the correct historical terms for every little thing. This, in turn, affected the pacing. I dropped the book around 48% because it was just so slow. At that point in the story Bram Stoker had only tangentially learned something about the main plot and none of that was interesting enough to keep me going.

I don't think the book knows what it wants to be. It contains multitudes in a way. It's a Bram Stoker biography, a historical novel, a vampire tale and a campy romp all at the same time. None of this meshes well with a central plot. One of the things that made me put this down was a sudden change of POV to a completely new villanous character who wasn't even in the city and just infodumped a lot of the plot. Just very odd and not enjoyable. Maybe give this a go if you really want to know about London in the 1880s but not if you want a tale about the inspiration for Dracula.

This is not for me. I couldn't et into it. I kept thinking of Elizabeth Kostova (The Historian) and it doesn't compare. I loved that novel.

I was hoping for so much from this based on the title and the subject, but ultimately it didn’t quite live up to its fantastic cover and wonderful title. Matthew Gibson has an extensive knowledge of Stoker that is clear, and it’s all on display here, but it never amounts to an intriguing enough story. He’s a wonderful writer, but this at times felt more like an info dump than a fully realized narrative. There’s some well crafted moments and his attention to detail makes the world feel alive, but ultimately it just didn’t capture me the way I had hoped. Still I would read other works by this author. Thanks to Netgalley for this ARC.

I was really looking forward to reading this book, as a lover of gothic horror and vampires. What a disappointment it was, with a slow and tedious storyline. The author's blurb described him as "leading scholar on Bram Stoker and the Gothic", and this level of smugness oozed through the text. I feel this was such a wasted opportunity for a really cracking take on how Stoker got the idea for Dracula.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review of the book.

Who doesn’t love Dracula? It’s the original gothic horror and a personal favourite. Recently I’ve been enjoying novels that mash genres together and I went into ‘Mr Stoker…’ expecting similar. Which I got to a point. The world built by Matthew Gibson is picture perfect, eliciting the feeling of being back in the 18oo’s, however, this is where it also falters. As the author is a revered expert in Bram Stoker i found this to be an almost academic slog instead of the pulp fiction vaudeville escape that I was hoping for. I finished but it was a struggle so I would say if you’re looking for a more serious piece of fiction then this may be your cup of tea. For me, it just didn’t go for the jugular.

I will admit that I was a little apprehensive about reading this title, as I tend to prefer the prototypes when it comes to the gothic or the terrific. I saw that David Punter had lent a very positive line to the initial read, a titan of a figure in the study of terror, so I was willing to give this a go on his recommendation!

Like other reviewers, I actually found this a lot of fun, it is entertaining with all sorts of clever references to culture, both historical and literary. If you really do like a straight dose of terror, it is definitely here, but not without palate cleansers of fun to help along the way.

I could easily see this adapted for the small screen - a very visual read, using the known tale that Stoker wrote his famous novel within the walls of the Lyceum, to take the reader into the unknown of just what exactly Stoker might have seen, heard and felt to inspire him to put pen to paper...

I really enjoyed reading this, I loved the idea of a fictional book about Bram Stoker, it had everything that I was looking for in a Gothic novel. The characters felt like the real people and I was hooked from the first chapter. It had a great spooky atmosphere and did everything that I was hoping for when requesting this book. I enjoyed the supernatural elements and enjoyed the mash-up to genres. I look forward to reading more from Matthew Gibson.

Matthew Gibson is an author who knows quite a lot about vampires and an awful lot more about Bram Stoker. What fun it was to read a novel full of gruesome facts and ghoulish fiction so perfectly transformed into the Grand Guignol of Victorian Gothic.
The author pays homage here to the best of the Victorian mystery writers: Bram Stoker, Sheridan Le Fanu and Arthur Conan-Doyle, with a plot which wouldn't have felt out of place in a Wilkie Collins novel or even one of the classic Hammer horror films.
All the tropes we love to fear are in play: a horse-drawn hearse driven at breakneck speed through the fog-shrouded streets of London, an Eastern European castle fortress, a few beheaded peasants and a swift stake through the heart - and offstage there's even Jack the Ripper to up the terror tempo.
Fabulous!

There's a good book in Mr Stoker and the Vampires of the Lyceum, I liked the premise and always enjoy historical crime fiction, Matthew Gibson's knowledge of Stoker is clearly great but I felt that this novel is dense with detail which detracts from the storytelling, it slows the pace down which is unfortunate.

Matthew Gibson invites the reader to become so intimately acquainted with Mr Stoker’s finely drawn characters that you can almost taste the blood on the lips of its villain.

He has also managed to marry the wider context of late-Victorian culture – from geopolitics to gender politics and from high art to the rise of the gutter press – seamlessly with the minutiae of social history in the domestic details of Mr Stoker’s ‘cast’.

Take a seat in the dress circle and prepare to suspend disbelief as the boundaries are blurred between real-life protagonists and their fictional associates, and the scene is set for a theatrical journey – on and off-stage.

We are transported at speed from an uneasy London, reeling from the brutal murders of ‘actresses’ in Whitechapel and steeped in anti-Irish sentiment, to the ‘otherness’ of Eastern Europe. As the two worlds collide, nothing is quite as it seems and everyone appears to be under suspicion.

This is a novel which is not afraid to question itself and to re-imagine the events leading to Dracula’s publication.

Bravo, Mr Stoker!

London 1888. During rehearsals at the Lyceum, a scream is heard coming from the cellar resulting in the discovery of a young female who had been attacked. By whom and how. There is also the murders by Jack the Ripper, coupled with the suspicious behaviour of Henry Irving and Ellen Terry to contend with. What can Bram Stoker think or do to solve the mysteries.
An entertaining Victorian gothic tale. A well-written story with its interesting and varied characters.
An ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Cameron Publicity and Marketing LTD for the opportunity to read rate and review this arc which will be available May 28,2023.

I honestly did not like it. The hubris of the author claiming in the blurb that he is the leading scholar on Stoker and Gothic Literature is very telling throughout the book. I could not get into it. It wasn’t gothic. It was one man’s love letter to an author he has deemed himself an expert on.

Matthew Gibson writes a creative and enjoyable exploration of vampire fiction. Ideal for readers looking for polished crafting and a fresh take.

Unfortunately, this didn't quite hit the spot for me.
Matthew Gibson has written a Bram Stoker biography, and this story is crammed with lots of facts and detail, which I normally love, but there was just so much that, at times, the fiction got lost.
There's also a bit of Scottish dialogue that messed my reading flow. To me, the phrases were wrong and misspelt, I'm Scottish, and it confused me.
Thank you, NetGalley and publishers, for the ARC