Stoker, Bram

8vo (186 x 122mm.), FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE (on heavy wove paper and without publisher's adverts), PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR A FEW DAYS AFTER PUBLICATION ("Tom Stoker | with Bram's love | 29 May 1897") on the preliminary blank, black morocco gilt by Sangorski and Sutcliffe, top edge gilt, gilt dentelles, moire silk endpapers, collector's black folding box, final blank (2C4) not present

Sale, Christie's London, 23 November 2011, lot 81

Dalby 10; Wolff 6581

ONE OF THE EARLIEST KNOWN PRESENTATION COPIES, INSCRIBED BY BRAM STOKER TO HIS BROTHER THOMAS.

This copy is remarkable for the early date of the inscription, only a three days after the book had first appeared on 23 May 1897. Another copy is known inscribed to Stoker's eldest brother, Thornly, on the same day, which suggests that these, the copies intended for his family, may have been the very first copies he inscribed.

Thomas Stoker (1849-1925), Bram's other elder brother, served in the Bengal Civil Service from 1872 until his retirement in 1899.

While the novel was well-received on publication by both the critics it was Stoker's mother Charlotte who spoke most highly of it, remarking: "No book since Mrs Shelley's Frankenstein or indeed any other at all has come near yours in originality, or terror…"