d a bronze medal from the RoyalHumane Society. Stoker bestowed this honor on characters in his future storiesThe Man, and Lady Athlyne. About this same time the publishing house of Sampson, Lowe wrote toStoker expressing interest in a collection of his stories. He published Under TheSun, a collection of childrens stories in 1881. Many critics thought the book wasunsuitable for children because of the dark, and macabre stories that were in it.One story tells how an orphan girl tries to warn the people of her town of animpending plague, portrayed as a ghost that loomed over the town.In 1883 Henry Irving took the entire production on tour to America. Theytraveled by train from New York to San Francisco and from New Orleans toMontreal never once canceling a performance. Their first tour of America wassuch a success they toured every year up to 1887. In 1888 The Lyceum began theproduction of Macbeth, this was also the year Jack the Ripper terrorized theWhitechapel area. For the next few years the Lyceum Theater continued to bringin money with Irving, Stoker, and Loveday (who called themselves the UnholyTrinity) leading the way and each year they still did a sold out tour of America.In the spring of 1895 Irving became the first actor to receive a knighthoodfrom the queen. In 1890, when his romance novel The Snakes Pass waspublished, he was already making notes for a novel with a vampire theme. InAugust Stoker, looking for a quiet place to write, took a walking tour of theScottish coast between Peterhead and Aberdeen, he returned to Cruden Bay, wherehe had been five years earlier to do research for the play Macbeth. He rented aroom at the Kilmarnock Arms Hotel in the small fishing village. The next morninghe hiked to nearby Slains Castle which he used as his inspiration for the castle inhis book. Here at the castle he began work on his most famous book Dracula. Hedidnt finish the book at this time, he returned the next summer to write the fin...
