Comprehensive information and links about Bram Stoker

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

His Life

He was born on November 8, 1847 at Clontarf in Ireland, a coastal suburb of Dublin. Until he was 8 years old, recurring illness ensured that he 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 , were of great importance for him, because he was forced to spend much of his life in bed.

Not only his illness but also 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 (). His interest in theatre lead to a lifelong friendship with the actor Henry Irving.

Stoker married Florence Balcome, a former girlfriend of Oscar Wilde, in 1878. (This reportedly inspired Wilde to leave Ireland.) 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 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.

has been the basis for countless films and plays. The two that most closely follow the plot of the original novel are was produced while Stoker's widow was still alive, and the filmmakers were forced to change the setting and the names of the characters for copyright reasons.

Stoker wrote several other novels dealing with horror and supernatural themes, but none achieved the lasting fame or success of