Lady Athlyne

by Bram Stoker

Joy Ogilvie, the beautiful young daughter of a Kentucky colonel, plays a joke with her friends, pretending to be "Lady Athlyne", after hearing a story about the dashing Irish nobleman Lord Athlyne. Little does she know that half a world away, the real Lord Athlyne is a prisoner of war in a South African camp, where word reaches him that a woman in America is impersonating his wife. Upon his release, he decides to investigate the situation and travels to New York, where a near-fatal accident introduces him to Joy and her father. Athlyne and Joy fall instantly in love-but a series of misadventures and dangerous obstacles threatens to prevent their marriage. And when Colonel Ogilvie learns of their affair and challenges Athlyne to a duel to the death, their love just may end in tragedy! One of the most remarkable treatments of the theme of mutual and passionate love in English literature, Lady Athlyne reveals Stoker to be a versatile and multi-dimensional author. Poorly received upon its initial release in 1908, it has remained out of print and unobtainable for a century. This Valancourt Books edition follows the text of the exceedingly rare 1908 New York edition held by the Library of Congress. About the Author Bram Stoker (1847-1812) is best known for his horror novels Dracula (1897), Lady of the Shroud (1909), and Lair of the White Worm (1911), although he also wrote a number of romantic adventure novels, including The Snake's Pass (1890), The Mystery of the Sea (1902), and Lady Athlyne (1908).

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Romance

284 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1908

About the author

Irish-born Abraham Stoker, known as Bram, of Britain wrote the gothic horror novel Dracula (1897).

The feminist Charlotte Mathilda Blake Thornely Stoker at 15 Marino crescent, then as now called "the crescent," in Fairview, a coastal suburb of Dublin, Ireland, bore this third of seven children. The parents, members of church of Ireland, attended the parish church of Saint John the Baptist, located on Seafield road west in Clontarf with their baptized children.

Stoker, an invalid, started school at the age of seven years in 1854, when he made a complete and astounding recovery. Of this time, Stoker wrote, "I was naturally thoughtful, and the leisure of long illness gave opportunity for many thoughts which were fruitful according to their kind in later years."

After his recovery, he, a normal young man, even excelled as a university athlete at Trinity college, Dublin form 1864 to 1870 and graduated with honors in mathematics. He served as auditor of the college historical society and as president of the university philosophical society with his first paper on "Sensationalism in Fiction and Society."

In 1876, while employed as a civil servant in Dublin, Stoker wrote a non-fiction book (The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland, published 1879) and theatre reviews for The Dublin Mail, a newspaper partly owned by fellow horror writer J. Sheridan Le Fanu. His interest in theatre led to a lifelong friendship with the English actor Henry Irving. He also wrote stories, and in 1872 "The Crystal Cup" was published by the London Society, followed by "The Chain of Destiny" in four parts in The Shamrock.

In 1878 Stoker married Florence Balcombe, a celebrated beauty whose former suitor was Oscar Wilde. The couple moved to London, where Stoker became business manager (at first as acting-manager) of Irving's Lyceum Theatre, a post he held for 27 years. The collaboration with Irving was very important for Stoker and through him he became involved in London's high society, where he met, among other notables, James McNeil Whistler, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the course of Irving's tours, Stoker got the chance to travel around the world.

The Stokers had one son, Irving Noel, who was born on December 31, 1879.

People cremated the body of Bram Stoker and placed his ashes placed in a display urn at Golders green crematorium. After death of Irving Noel Stoker in 1961, people added his ashes to that urn. Despite the original plan to keep ashes of his parents together, after death, people scattered ashes of Florence Stoker at the gardens of rest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_Stoker

Reviews

[Sara Booklover · Rating 4 out of 5]

La prima traduzione italiana di un Bram Stoker come non lo avete mai conosciuto!
Una piacevole e romantica commedia degli equivoci, che al giorno d’oggi sarebbe risultata molto più piacevole se l’autore si fosse limitato a narrare la storia senza inframezzarla con riflessioni filosofiche ed esistenziali sulle differenze naturali e sentimentali tra uomo e donna e sul ruolo di quest’ultima, anche in funzione della famiglia e della società. Riflessioni che all’epoca avevano il pregio di risultare plausibili e anche moderne, ma che adesso sembrano più un sermone moraleggiante. Tuttavia riconosco che Stoker fosse molto avanti per l’epoca e ciò appare chiaro dalla caratterizzazione del suo personaggio femminile, una ragazza che nonostante l’educazione tradizionale risulta emancipata e di ampie vedute. E anche nei comportamenti è molto moderna.
La storia è originale, scorrevole e gradevole da leggere come intrattenimento leggero, se non fosse per le divagazioni che appesantiscono inutilmente una lettura carina avrebbe potuto essere un libro da 5 stelline.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

In many ways an amazing book, though suffers from some rather lengthy turgid passages, and a very slow beginning, a lot of mildly objectionable sexism and a bit of very objectionable racism. I've read all but one of Stoker's novels, I think, and of those, none comes close to Dracula. But this is definitely the best of the rest and a long way ahead of any of the others.

It's remarkably frank about matters sexual. I can't think of anything this early (1908) that comes close. And it's as much, or even more, the woman's sexual being and desire that is highlighted.

It also displays Stoker's interest in technology. A lot of the action has to do with motor cars and there is a long section in which the heroine has to make a very difficult drive at night in the fog!! Plus, there is an arrest for speeding which seems to be legally called "furious" driving. I really like that.

SPOILERS.... The best bit, however, is the denouement. A man of honor, a Kentucky Colonel, feels his honor slighted by our hero, a British nobleman. Knowing that the old man will want to kill him on the field of honour, Athlyne, acting carefully but with his own instinctive sense of honor, offers himself as a victim in a way that, in effect, makes it next to impossible for the old man to kill him. I can't reproduce all the details, but it's an extended treatment (over 50 odd pages) of an encounter that lasts only an hour or so, with turn and counter-turn, handled masterfully.

[Carlotta · Rating 4 out of 5]

In generale il modo in cui gli esseri umani aspettano un cambiamento radicale in loro stessi e in ciò che li circonda arriva immediatamente dopo qualche atto volontario. Non possono capire, in ogni caso non subito, che le "eterne verità" sono eterne. "Io potrei morire, ma l'erba continuerà a crescere" dice Tennyson in una delle sue canzoni. E questa è la storia in breve. Dopotutto, cos'è una vita, per quanto possa essere perfetta o nobile, nel grande movimento del mondo dei fatti?

Dall'autore di Dracula non mi aspettavo un romanzo rosa ... o forse un po' sì, vista la storia tra Mina e Jonathan Harker. Questo è un romance di tipo "lento" non aspettatevi qualcosa di moderno, introspettivo e forse un po' troppo romantico, ma comunque la storia (anche se a tratti inverosimile per tutte quelle coincidenze) è interessante e scorrevole.

[Gio · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐️
stoker avresti amato love is blind

[blake · Rating 4 out of 5]

A girlish game leads to a case of unmistaken identity and possibly a deadly duel! Preston Sturges film? No! Bram Stoker's 10th novel! Once again our intrepid author finds himself wrestling with the sexual mores of his time, in particular the proper role of women in the courtship process. My Stoker Bingo card had "emergency wedding", "deep dive into some specific science, history or law topic"—in this case, it was Scottish marriage laws, naïve lovers' misunderstandings of the opposite sex leading to travails, "woman-like", "man-like", "heavy reliance on contemporary pseudo-science"—thrice, this time: cell theory(?), the aether and psychology—and "grueling journey heroically undertaken".

The last is a 100 mile automobile drive from Scotland to England but, hey, people, it was 1909, and it was foggy!

The best parts of the book are the setup, which is ludicrous but delightful. The heroine strikes up a friendship with a ship stewardess who is coincidentally the former wet nurse of a great English Lord and who swears the only man who's good enough for our heroine is her former charge. This strikes all the ladies' fancies and, as a joke, they start calling her Lady Athlyne. The joke gets around and ultimately back to the hero, who decides he must investigate this scandalous, unladlylike behaviour incognito but has no idea where to look.

Another very good part comes at the end when one of the characters just bursts into hysterics at the absurdity of the situation. It had a genuine screwball feel at times.

The only really "bad" parts were the pseudo-science which from the perspective of writing in 1909 must not have seemed any different from his similar writings about good science (like the bogs in The Snake's Pass). It's probably only ten pages.

The only other thing I'd say is it might've been better if it were even lighter. Still, it's quite fascinating at this point to see Stoker still growing as an author.

I think his contemporaries may have also found his previous book-endings rather abrupt. His last one was just about perfect for the book as a whole. This one is actually about the last 10% of the book—a little on the long side, even, but he actually seemed to be having fun with his characters and ideas at that point, so I'll give it a pass.

Fun find: Appearance of the word "kodaking" which I used in my rewrite of Lair of the White Worm but worried about being too cute.

Next, and last: The Lady of the Shroud

[Anthony · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a huge Bram Stoker fan. I've reread Dracula, The Lair of the White Worm, The Jewel of the Seven Stars and various of Stoker's short stories countless times since middle school, and a few years back decided that I needed to read his lesser-known work. I read his romance The Snake's Pass and enjoyed it well enough. I decided to tackle Lady Athlyne next and ... it's been a struggle. So much so that this is the one booked named in my 2014 "To Be Read" Challenge that I didn't actually finish in 2014. But I made the push and finished the book in January 2015 instead.

At least I can say I read it. But the two star rating should clue people in that this really wasn't an enjoyable experience. Stoker is known for being drawn-out and sometimes repetitive (Dracula certainly has its share of both types of moments and yet it remains one of my all-time favorite novels), but Lady Athlyne brings those quirks into sharp light. This is a story that could have been told in half the pages and been much more compelling -- all the author would have needed to do was cut all the pages in which there was no character or plot development because he was too busy pontificating on the Nature of Love (or the Nature of Womanhood, Girlhood, Manhood, Family, Society, etc.). I think ultimately this is why the book was such a struggle for me: the constant digressions bringing the plot and character development to a complete stop. Every time it happened, I found myself setting the book aside to do/read/listen to something else. I finally bulled my way through, skimming the Pontificating Pages and watching for plot or character progression moments.

I liked the naive Joy Ogilvie and the dashing Lord Athlyne (who manages, through family history, to be an English, Irish and Scottish lord, and seems distantly related to Lucy Westenra from Dracula). I had no problem with the frequent road-blocks the author threw in their path to a happy ending, including Joy's over-the-top, masculine, easily-offended charicature of a father; this is a romance after all and so things should not go smoothly for Our Heroine and her Man. But those digressions hurt my overall opinion of the book.

[Micch · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ho trovato questo libro eccessivamente lungo e ripetitivo.

Ci sono stati interi capitoli in cui la trama non è avanzata di mezzo centimetro, né c'è stata alcuna informazione in più riguardo i personaggi. Capitoli che potevano essere decisamente tagliati o, quantomeno, accorciati.

C'è stata un'eccessiva lentezza nei primi 15 capitoli, specie nell'avanzamento della storia d'amore (possiamo accettare lo slowest burn che sia mai esistito, dato il periodo storico), per poi impazzire del tutto e far addirittura scambiare effusioni ai due protagonisti un capitolo dopo, senza nemmeno essersi scambiati 10 frasi totali.

Avrei apprezzato una costruzione più graduale, al posto di questa impennata improvvisa.

In generale, mi sono piaciuti molto i personaggi, specie la zia Judy.
Sono decisamente soddisfatta anche del suo ipotetico lieto fine.

Non essendo esperta del periodo storico, mi è poco chiaro come lo scherzo riguardo "la Contessa di Athlyne" sia arrivato fino alle orecchie del Lord stesso a Pretoria. Non mi è chiaro come lo scherzo della cabina di una nave, sia uscito di lì.
Come mi ha leggermente deluso che la confessione finale, non abbia portato a nessuna reazione da parte del protagonista maschile. Nemmeno un commento a riguardo.
Viaggia fino a New York per trovarla e poi non fa una piega.

Possibile che tutto questo sia successo e io me lo sia perso nelle infinite riflessioni sulla natura umana, la natura dell'amore, la differenza tra uomo e donna e così via che molto spesso rendevano i capitoli decisamente pesanti.
Qualche digressione in meno, secondo me, avrebbe reso la lettura più gradevole.

Per il resto la trama romantica in sé e per sé non mi è dispiaciuta e si nota decisamente che la penna è di altri tempi e anche di un certo spessore.
Detto ciò, se non fosse stato un romanzo di Stoker probabilmente l'avrei mollato a metà.

[Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an entertaining and comical romance. It dragged on in parts...seemed stretched.

[itsmesara · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.8⭐️