Beschreibung:

Bram Stoker to Helen Barry Autograph letter signed, 1873 STOKER, Bram (1847-1912). Autograph letter signed ("Abraham Stoker") to the actress Helen Barry, 47 Kildare Street, Dublin, 19 September (corrected from 28 August) 1873. 12 pages, octavo, penned recto and verso on 3 bifolia, excellent condition. "I feel [a] dull aching void that cannot be filled:" an outpouring of advice on the theater and life, written by the 26-year old Stoker to the 32-year old Helen Barry at the outset of her career. Stoker begins with the assurance that he is writing "like a father … I am not a bit spoony about you. I say this lest you ever misconstrue my purpose in writing so often." His advice on Barry’s career is summed up as "Rehearse often & thoroughly. Take care of exaggeration & study your play as a whole." He warns her of theatrical rivalries and the likelihood of occasional failure ("You have risen like a rocket and there is an old saw about coming down like the stick") and advises her to remain humble in spite of her success. Finally he warns her against gentleman admirers, whom he styles as "moths," darkly warning of the perils of allowing them near, and advising her to make her friends inside the theatrical world: "moths are detrimental to art. A woman of your personal attractions will always whilst those attractions last be like a lamp for moths to flit around." The letter concludes with a remarkable declaration of Stoker’s emotional state: "I know full well what it is to have a yearning for excitement, to be heart-hungry & feel [a] dull aching void that cannot be filled … and at the same time I feel that not all the false gaiety of the world can fill that void." In spite of his authoritative tone, Stoker was at this stage only a rather inexperienced theater critic for the Dublin Evening Mail; his practical involvement with the theater, as acting manager and later business manager for Henry Irving’s Lyceum Theatre, was to begin only after his move to London in 1878. Helen Barry had asked Stoker for advice after her theatrical debut in a leading role at Covent Garden in 1872, which marked a meteoric, if belated, beginning to the acting career on which she embarked only at the age of 32, after the dissolution of her first marriage. The letter is discussed and quoted in Barbara Belford, Bram Stoker (New York, 1996), pp.55-56 (which inaccurately describes Barry as being six years younger, rather than six years older, than Stoker).