Nerdtuckian

historicalmeetups:

Bram Stoker
Future vampire chronicler

meets

Winston Churchill
Future Nazi vanquisher

The soon-to-be author of Dracula first encountered the prospective savior of the British Empire in 1887, when Churchill was 13 years old. Stoker was in London working as a gofer for his close friend, the actor Henry Irving, and the business manager of Irving’s Lyceum Theater. The position put Stoker in good position to mingle with the leading lights of London high society. One night Lord Randolph Churchill, an acquaintance of Stoker’s from his days in Ireland, dropped by the theater to introduce Stoker to his teenaged son. Stoker would remember Churchill later as a “strongly built boy with red hair and very red cheeks.”  “He’s not much yet,” gushed proud Papa Churchill about his stout progeny. “But he’s a good ‘un. He’s a good ‘un!” Some years later, after travelling the globe on Irving’s dime, and having seen Dracula published to critical praise but middling sales, Stoker was back in London scraping by as a freelance journalist. In 1908, he asked approached the now 34-year-old Churchill, then Undersecretary for the Colonies and a rising star in British politics, to request an interview. “I would very much rather not,” Churchill replied. “I hate being interviewed, and I have refused altogether to allow it. But I have to break the rule for you, for you were a friend of my father. And because you are the author of Dracula.” The two men sat down for a wide-ranging Q&A that covered Churchill’s military career, his ascent through the ranks of British government, and the secret of true happiness, which Churchill defined as “life when a man’s work is also his pleasure and vice versa.” 

Can’t seem to find the Q&A; disappointing.