Biography

Bram Stoker

Bram (Abraham) Stoker was born on November 8th, 1847 in Dublin, Ireland. His father was a civil servant and his mother was a charity worker and writer. Stoker was a sickly child and spent a lot of time in bed. Growing up his mother told him a lot of horror stories. Stoker studied Mathematics at Trinity College Dublin and he graduated in 1867, there, despite his earlier years of illness became involved in athletics, winning many awards. After graduation he became a civil servant. At this time, he also worked as a free lance journalist, a drama critic and editor of the "Evening Mail". In 1876 he met Sir Henry Irving, a famous actor. Stoker accepted a job as a personal secretary to Irving and went to England in 1878. Before he left Ireland he published his first book "The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland" in 1878. While working for Irving he met an aspiring actress named Florence Balcombe. They were married 1878 and had one son, Noel, born in 1879. In England he also began writing a series of novels and short stories the first of which was "The Snake's Pass". Although best known for "Dracula", Stoker wrote eighteen books before he died in 1912. Stoker died at the age of 64 of exhaustion in London. Stoker started to write novels including The Primrose Path (1875), The Snake's Pass (1890), The Watter's Mou' (1895), The Shoulder of Shasta (1895), Miss Betty (1898) and short stories collected in Under the Sunset (1881). Other works by Stoker include The Mystery of the Sea (1902), his Egyptian mummy-themed The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903), The Man (also titled The Gates of Life 1905), Lady Athlyne (1908), The Lady of the Shroud (1909), Famous Impostors (1910), and The Lair of the White Worm (1911) which also includes elements found in Dracula like unseen evil, strange creatures, inexplicable events, and supernatural horrors.