Whitby At the end of July 1890 Abraham Stoker, his wife Florence and their son Noel, visited the Yorkshire seaside town of Whitby where they spent three weeks in Mrs Veazey’s guesthouse at 6 Royal Crescent, in a suite overlooking the sea on the West Cliff. Stoker was taking a break from his London job… Read more »
Abraham Stoker (8 November 1847 – 20 April 1912) was an Irish author who is celebrated for his 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula.
In the late 1800s the hospitality industry in London was in the doldrums. The most famous diva of her time, Australian opera singer Dame Nellie Melba, described the cooking at the city’s leading hotels as ‘execrable…The carpets were dirty, the menu was medieval, the service an insult.’ The opening of The Savoy in 1889 changed… Read more »
Everything about Honoré de Balzac was exuberant, uncouth and larger than life. One of the greatest European writers and the founder of the modern novel, he was also a flaneur, treasure hunter, gourmet, political campaigner, businessman, self-publicist, inventor, interior decorator and con man. He participated in his age like a whirling dervish. Coming of age… Read more »