A Wild Spook Chase: Stoker's Wilde by Steven Hopstaken and Melissa Prusi

Dear potential reader

The epistolary novel, a novel based on "found" documents, mostly letters, sometimes diary entries and others, has a worthy lineage dating back to the Renaissance. Originally it was most typically used for the romance, for obvious reasons, the first epistolary novels were purported to be exchanges of letters between lovers. 

But in the 19th century it also found a very congenial home in the Gothic novel, the predecessor of our horror and terror novels today. The reason is clear, letters, documents, diaries, allow us, dear potential readers, intimate access to the supposed writer's greatest hopes and especially fears and apprehensions. Perhaps the best Gothic epistolary novel ever written is Dracula, penned by one Bram Stoker and published in 1897. 

If you haven't yet read Dracula, dear potential reader, you must do so forthwith!

Of course it is not necessary for you to have read Dracula in order to enjoy Stoker's Wilde, but it really would help. You see, Abraham (Bram) Stoker, a hearty. bluff, redheaded Irishman together with Oscar Wilde, also a rather large but effete, fey Irishman, are, dear potential reader, the main protagonists of this pseudo-Gothic epistolary novel. 

It starts with a hunt for a werewolf, then vampires, then the uncovering of a dreadful conspiracy and its artful subsequent dismantlement, in between there is theatre, amorous intrigue, marriage and infidelity. I was much afraid upon reading the first chapters, dear potential reader, that this novel would be childish, but my fears proved to be baseless! As a rather piquant sex scene involving Mr Wilde soon put paid and laid to rest, that trepidation.

The rest of the novel is a romp, a bit of a Scooby Doo spook chase with our heroes, the best of frenemies, having eventually to work together to unravel the mystery of the Black Bishop and banish his evilness to the nether world!

If you like the writing of Kim Newman, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novels by Alan Moore, you know what to expect: sterling neogothic.

Yours most sincerely,

Clariana

P.S. Thanks are due as always to NetGalley and also to Flame Tree Press for allowing me to read an early version of this text.