Whitby of St Hilda (657–680). Part of Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" was set in Whitby, incorporating pieces of local folklore, including the beaching of the Russian ship "Dmitri". Stoker discovered the name "Dracula" at the old public library. One scholar has suggested that Stoker chose Whitby as the site of Dracula's first appearance in England because of the Synod of Whitby, given the novel's preoccupation with timekeeping and calendar disputes. Elizabeth Gaskell set her novel "Sylvia's Lovers" partly in the town which she visited in 1859 and Lewis Carroll stayed at 5, East Terrace between July and September 1854: his first
Bram Stoker his fiction as an outlet for his sexual frustrations. In 1912, he demanded imprisonment of all homosexual authors in Britain: it has been suggested that this was due to self-loathing and to disguise his own vulnerability. Possibly fearful, and inspired by the monstrous image and threat of otherness that the press coverage of his friend Oscar's trials generated, Stoker began writing "Dracula" only weeks after Wilde's conviction. According to the "Encyclopedia of World Biography", Stoker's stories are today included in the categories of "horror fiction", "romanticized Gothic" stories, and "melodrama." They are classified alongside other "works of popular fiction" such