Bram Stoker Essays - Dracula, Golders Green Crematorium, Bram Stoker

Bram Stoker Abraham (Bram) Stoker was born November 8, 1847 at 15 The Crescent, Clontarf, North of Dublin, the third of seven children. For the first 7 years of his life Stoker was bedridden with a myriad of childhood diseases which afforded him much time to reading. By the time he went to college, Stoker had somehow overcome his childhood maladies and while at Trinity College, Dublin, the honor student was involved in soccer and was a marathon running champion. He was also involved in various literary and dramatic activities, a precursor to his later interests in the theater and his involvement with the rising action Henry Irving, whose performance he had critiqued as a student at Trinity. After graduation from college, and in his father's footsteps, he became a civil servant, holding the position of junior clerk in the Dublin Castle. His literary career began as early as 1871 and in that year he took up a post as the unpaid drama critic for the "Evening Mail," while at the same time writing short stories. His first literary "success" came a year later when, in 1872, The London Society published his short story "The Crystal Cup." As early as 1875 Stoker's unique brand of fiction had come to the forefront. In a four part serial called the "Chain of Destiny," were themes that would become Stoker's trademark: horror mixed with romance, nightmares and curses. Stoker encountered Henry Irving again, this time in the role of Hamlet, 10 years after Stoker's Trinity days. Stoker, still very much the critic (and still holding his civil service position), gave Irving's performance a favorable review. Impressed with Stoker's review, Irving invited Stoker back stage and the resultant friendship lasted until Irving's death in 1905. The Stoker/Irving partnership solidified around the year 1878. During this time Henry Irving had taken over his own theater company called the London Lyceum, but he didn't like the management, and therefore approached Stoker to handle business, at which point Stoker gave up his government job and became the acting manager of the theater. A short time after Stoker began his new career, the publishing house of Sampson, Lowe contacted him expressing interest in a collection of Stoker's stories. "Under the Sunset" was published in 1891 and was well received by some of the critics, but others thought the book too terrifying for children. Stoker was already fascinated with the notion of the "boundaries of life and death" (Leatherdale, p.63) which made this book too terrifying for children at least in some of the reviewer's minds. By the time Stoker had received favorable reviews for his romance novel "The Snake's Pass" (1890), he was already making notes for a novel with a vampire theme, and by 1894 he was back to macabre themes. It seemed only a natural consequence that "Dracula" would follow and was published in June 1897. Reviews on "Dracula" were mixed, and the book never yielded much money for Stoker. In a favorable review the "Daily Mail" compared it with "Frankenstein" and Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher." "The Bookman" found it likeable in spots but commented that the "descriptions were hideous and repulsive." (Leatherdale, p.68) For the next few years after "Dracula's" publication, events took a downward spiral for both Irving and Stoker. There were troubles with Irving's establishment and a fire destroyed part of the theater (including some important scenery) and Irving eventually sold it. Stoker did manage however to publish "The Jewel of the 7 Stars" in 1903, and it was a novel based on the information given to Stoker by an Egyptologist. In 1905 Henry Irving died, leaving the aging Stoker without a steady jot for the first time in his life. A year after Irving's death Stoker wrote "Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving." Stoker managed to write other novels after this point until the time of his death in 1912 at the age of 64.

Energy and society Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Energy and society - Essay Example In order to combat these problems, several possible solutions have been offered key among them being the allocation of more land area to these renewable resources in order to maximize production, population centers should also be established close to these land areas to provide the much needed manpower needing Long distance transmission mechanisms of this renewable energy should also be introduced in order to make the most of more available resources in order to curb the deficit of electricity both locally and in the country as a whole. Stakeholders in the energy sector should also set up extensive energy storage facilities to ensure availability of this renewable electricity regardless of any weather fluctuations. These weather fluctuations should be forecast on a minute-by-minute basis to predict up and down movements of the renewable resources. Several states have come up with Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) which require a percentage of the electricity produced in the area to be produced from renewable resources. The federal policymakers also propose the inception of national RPS to enhance the

Google and Innovation Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Google and Innovation - Term Paper Example Its business model is driven by technology based innovation in the area of internet. Most importantly, its business strategy relies on exploiting the vast opportunities of internet to generate revenues for itself as well as for the users and its clients who vary from individual and small entrepreneurs to large corporate houses. Modern business is highly competitive and its challenges need to be met through constant endeavours for innovative products and services that meet and anticipate the changing requirements of the people. Its numerous products and services vis-a-vis Google Chrome, Google App, AdWords, AdSense etc. are testament to its technological advantage that provide users with unique experience and opportunities to enhance their business goals. Moreover, it serves the interests of diverse populace across the globe by providing contents in more than 160 languages worldwide. It has also established offices in more than 40 countries to facilitate local businesses to exploit bu siness opportunities through internet. This is highly creative strategy that integrates local interests with global ambitions. The local businesses can use GooglePlaces to add their business in the list. Thus, when products are searched area wise from across varying geographical locations, their name along with details like address and phone can be accessed by the potential customers. Answer 2 Organization life cycle of Google’s products/services is seasonal mainly due to the fact that internet usage is reduced in summers and commercial activities significantly increase during the fourth quarter. Vacations and festival season contributes to the seasonality. In recent times, recessive trend has also become critical factor for reduced commercial activities. But despite its seasonality, AdSense, Google App and Android are three major product/services that have witnessed significant increase in terms of global sales volume. Advertising is the main source of revenue generation tha t accounts for 96% of its total revenue3. It also serves as key tool that provides its clients with huge opportunities for growth of business and revenue. AdSense program facilitates websites which are part of Network to efficiently deliver advertisements from AdWords advertisers and revenue shared amongst them. Google App has become hugely popular as its various application tools like email, documents, calendar greatly help to communicate effectively within and across the workplace. Moreover, its cloud based application helps to switch from one medium to another while accessing information. As Google constantly upgrades its products and services, the businesses using its cloud based products and services are not only able to enjoy secured access but they are also not bothered by advancing technology which could have otherwise made it difficult to access data. Android is mobile based platform that can be used to develop applications for mobile devices. Its free open source has made it very popular. Within a year of its launch in 2011 and as on January 2012, more than 250 million mobiles devices were using Android system. Answer 3 The type of control strategy that Google practices is based on decentralized system that gives its employees full freedom to experiment with new ideas within an encouraging environment of constant learning. The decentralized system creates an open environment of trust and accessibility to resources