King Arthur, written by J. Comyns Carr (Tennyson had previously declined the commission), was a huge success at the Lyceum Theatre in 1895, with over a hundred performances, before touring to acclaim in America. It starred the leading theatrical figures Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, sets were designed by Edward Burne-Jones, and music was written by Arthur Sullivan. The spectacular production emphasized Arthur’s role as a point of origin for national pride and a mythic hero for the British Empire. Irving’s assistant and the manager of the Lyceum was Bram Stoker, later famous for his Gothic horror novel Dracula.