Portal:Horror/Selected biography archive/July 2006

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Abraham "Bram" Stoker (November 8, 1847–April 20, 1912) was an Irish writer, best remembered as the author of the influential horror novel Dracula.

Stoker was born on November 8, 1847 at Clontarf in Ireland, a coastal suburb of Dublin to Abraham Stoker and Charlotte Mathilda Blake Thornley as the third of seven children. Abraham and Charlotte were members of the Church of Ireland and attended the Clontarf parish church (St. John the Baptist) with their children. Until he was 7 years old, recurring illness ensured that Bram could neither stand up nor walk on his own. This illness and helplessness was a traumatic experience which is noticeable in his literary work. Everlasting sleep and the resurrection from the dead, which are the central themes of Dracula, were of great importance for him, because he was forced to spend much of his life in bed.

His illness and his convalescence were considered miracles by his doctors. After his recovery, he became a normal young man who even became an athlete and soccer-star at the University of Dublin, where he studied history, literature, mathematics and physics at Trinity College. He was also president of the University Philosophical Society, where his first paper was on "Sensationalism in Fiction and Society", and auditor of the College Historical Society. He became a civil servant, a career that didn't satisfy him. So he started to work as a journalist and as a drama critic (The Evening Mail). His interest in theatre lead to a lifelong friendship with the actor Henry Irving.

Stoker married Florence Balcombe, a former girlfriend of Oscar Wilde, in 1878. Stoker moved with his wife to London, where he became business manager of Irving's Lyceum Theatre, a post he held for 27 years. The collaboration with Irving was very important for Stoker. Through him he became involved in London's high society, where he met James McNeil Whistler and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the course of Irving's tours he got the chance to travel around the world.

He supplemented his income by writing a large number of sensational novels, his most famous being the vampire tale Dracula which he published in 1897. Before writing Dracula, Stoker spent eight years researching European folklore and stories of vampires. Dracula is an epistolary novel, written as collection of diary entries, telegrams, and letters from the characters, as well as fictional clippings from the Whitby and London newspapers.

Stoker wrote several other novels dealing with horror and supernatural themes, but none achieved the lasting fame or success of Dracula. His other novels include The Snake's Pass (1890), The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903), and The Lair of the White Worm (1911). (continued...)