Bram Stoker
Abraham "Bram" Stoker (8 November 1847 20 April 1912) was an Irish writer of novels and short stories, who is best known today for his 1897 horror novel Dracula. During his lifetime, he was better known for being the personal assistant of the actor Henry Irving and the business manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London.
Early life, career, Lyceum Theatre and later career
He was born in 1847 at 15 Marino Crescent, Ireland. Stoker was the third of seven children. Stoker was bed-ridden until he started school at the age of seven, when he made a complete recovery. After his recovery, he became a normal young man, even excelling (he was named University Athlete) at Trinity College, Dublin . He was auditor of the College Historical Society and president of the University Philosophical Society. While the civil servant in Dublin, Stoker wrote a non-fiction book (The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland) and became the theatre critic for the newspaper Dublin Evening Mail. In December 1876, he gave a favourable review of the actor Henry Irving's performance as Hamlet at the Theatre Royal in Dublin. In 1878 Stoker married Florence Balcombe, a celebrated beauty whose former suitor was Oscar Wilde. The couple moved to London, where Stoker became acting-manager and then business manager of Irving's Lyceum Theatre. Bram and Florence's had only child, a son - Irving Noel Thornley Stoker. Stokers best novel was Dracula. 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's inspirations for the story were a visit to Slains Castle in Aberdeenshire, and a visit to the crypts under the church St. John the Baptist where Stoker was baptised.
Posthumous
The short story collection Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories was published in 1914 by Stoker's widow Florence Stoker. The first film adaptation of Dracula was named Nosferatu. It was directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and starred Max Schreck as Count Orlock. Nosferatu was produced while Florence Stoker, Bram Stoker's widow and literary executrix, was still alive. Represented by the attorneys of the British Incorporated Society of Authors, she eventually sued the filmmakers. Her chief legal complaint was that she had been neither asked for permission for the adaptation nor paid any royalty. The case dragged on for some years, with Mrs. Stoker demanding the destruction of the negative and all prints of the film. The suit was finally resolved in the widow's favour in July 1925. Some copies of the film survived, however and the film has become well known.
Novels ; The Primrose Path ;The Snake's Pass ; The Watter's Mou'; Dracula ; Miss Betty The Mystery of the
Sea ; The Jewel of Seven Stars ; The Man ; Lady Athlyne ; The Lady of the Shroud ; The Lair of the White Worm.
Short story collections; Under the Sunset; Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories Uncollected stories; "Bridal of Dead" ; "Buried Treasures" ;"The Chain of Destiny" ;"The Crystal
Cup"; "The Dualitists; or, The Death Doom of the Double Born"; "Lord Castleton Explains"; "In the Valley of the Shadow";"The Man from Shorrox" ;"Midnight Tales"; "The Red Stockade" ;"The Seer".
Non-fiction; The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland ; A Glimpse of America; Personal Reminiscences
of Henry Irving; Famous Impostors; Bram Stoker's Notes for Dracula.
