Florence Stoker

I really love that.

And also I've just read the extraordinary Florence Stoker.

Gosh, that's amazing.

I'm reading that now.

Uh-

So even though they altered details, they didn't alter them enough, and Bram Stoker's widow, Florence Stoker, who had control over the estate, sued their asses off, won the court case, and all copies of the film Nosferatu were destroyed.

That's a, that's a pretty, that's a pretty big victory for, for Florence.

Pretty-

Mm-hmm.

Uh, Florence Balcombe.

Now, Florence also had another fella who was, um, wanting to marry her, so she had two lovers.

She had to decide which one she wanted.

Yep.

In 1878, Bram became engaged to a woman named Florence Balcombe.

We've seen Florence before on this podcast.

Yeah, you might think that Florence would be our second important person, but instead it's the man that Florence broke up with in order to marry Bram, a young Oxford student by the name of Oscar Wilde.

Bram would have likely met the Wilde's sons, William, who was known as Willie, and Oscar at around this time, although the circumstances of these meetings are unknown.

Oscar Wilde's biographer Richard Ellman records that Bram had nominated Oscar for the Philosophical Society, so Oscar also went to Trinity College Dublin before going on to Oxford, but Oscar was not heavily involved with it once he had joined.

At some point in the mid-1870s, Oscar made the acquaintance of Florence Balcombe and began courting her.

So are Oscar and Bram around the same age? There's, I believe, a seven-year age gap.

This year, I'm thrilled to welcome Karen back to the podcast to discuss her brand new novel.

Called The Extraordinary Florence Stoker, this book is both fascinating and enthralling in equal measures.

A book that follows the life of Dubliner Florence Balcombe, a witty and beautiful woman who marries Bram Stoker, the man who would become best known for his gothic horror novel Dracula.

With impressive attention to detail and underpinned by extensive research, what Karen has done with this novel is to give us an intimate glimpse into the life of this woman, who it becomes clear was indeed extraordinary for so many reasons.

not the least of which was her marriage to a man who was, to all intents and purposes, an enigma, as well as her fight to ensure copyright in her husband's work was protected against unauthorized adaptations.

Now, if you've got a writing moment you'd like to share, whether it's a small win or a milestone or something that just made you go, aha, email me, podcast at writercentre.com.au. That brings us to our competition this week.

We're giving away three copies of The Extraordinary Florence Stoker by Karen Brooks.

Here is the blurb.

From a best-selling award-winning author comes a compellingly realised story of an enigmatic figure.

The beautiful 19th century muse and brilliant social powerhouse Florence Stoker, whose life, in spite of her many gifts, was overshadowed by one of the most abiding and terrifying of contemporary culture's monsters, the vampire Dracula, her own husband's creation.

Dublin, 1878.

When the witty and beautiful Florence Balcombe marries up-and-coming theatre impresario and putative novelist Bram Stoker, and her dazzling literary salons make her the darling of the literary, theatre and art worlds in London, no one is surprised.

for her family, of the secret she keeps, and of the visions of a monstrous fanged demon that haunts her by day and night.

All contributions, great or small, are greatly appreciated.

In September, Erin Brooks launched her new novel, The Extraordinary Florence Stoker, at the Peacock Theatre in the Salamanca Arts Centre in Hobart.

She was joined by her publisher, Joe McKay.

Hi, everyone.

It poses a lot of questions, of course, so let's see if we can answer a few of those in the time we have.

We won't get through half of it, of course.

If we go to the first chapter of the book, we meet the young Florence Stoker then, as Tim said, Florence Balcombe for the first time.

She's 18 years old.