The Secret of the Growing Gold | Bram Stoker | A Bitesized Audiobook

Bitesized Audio Classics
Bitesized Audio Classics
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Published 2023-03-30
Two families, divided by generations of bitter rivalry and internecine quarrels, are bound together when Margret Delandre takes up with Geoffrey Brent. Their stormy relationship, however, is only the prelude to darker events... A short tale by the author of Dracula, dating from 1892.

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00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:12 The Story begins
00:36:56 Credits, thanks and further listening

Abraham "Bram" Stoker (1847–1912) was an Irish author, who created one of the most iconic characters in fiction, Dracula (1897). Born in Dublin, he had a lifelong interest in the theatre, and began his writing career as a drama critic for the Dublin Evening Mail (part-owned by the famous Irish ghost story writer Sheridan Le Fanu) in the 1870s. From c.1878 he worked as assistant and secretary to the great actor-manager Sir Henry Irving, at the Lyceum Theatre in London, a position he maintained for almost 27 years, until Irving's death in 1905.

He married Florence Balcombe, a famous beauty of the day, in 1878. Oscar Wilde, a contemporary of Stoker's at Trinity College, Dublin, was a rival for Florence's hand, and the engagement strained the two authors' friendship, but they were eventually reconciled and Stoker visited Wilde in exile after his disgrace.

Aside from Dracula, he published several novels and shorter fiction between 1890 and his death in 1912. His name will be forever associated with Dracula, but his other horror-themed novels include The Lady of the Shroud (1909) and The Lair of the White Worm (1911).

Bram Stoker died after a series of stokes on 20 April 1912; there is speculation that he may also have suffered from syphilis as his death certificate records "Locomotor ataxia" as the immediate cause of death. He was 64 years old.

His widow Florence was appointed his executrix and subsequently arranged for publication of a number of his uncollected short stories in book form. 'Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories' was published in 1914. 'The Secret of the Growing Gold' is included in that volume, although it had first appeared more than two decades earlier, printed in 'Black and White', a weekly review magazine, in January 1892.

The image on the title card is a detail from the painting 'Golden Hair' (c.1900) by the English Pre-Raphaelite artist Frederic Shields (1833-1911).

Recording © Bitesized Audio 2023.
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