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, which Irving owned. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

With all the hype over the movie/books Twlight, I felt it important to look at the man who gave us the greatest vampire of all time, Dracula. Some say that he may have been influenced by the Romanian ruler Vlad the Impaler, and others say he may have read Carmilla (1872), by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu another Irish writer who wrote a vampire novella in 1872. Below is some information on Le Fanu...

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-73), "The Invisible Prince", Irish journalist and writer, father of the Victorian ghost story. While he is best known for his novel about the "venerable, bloodless, fiery-eyed" uncle, Uncle Silas (1864) it was his vampire novella Carmilla (1872) that would contribute to defining the horror genre and probably influenced Bram Stoker in his writing of Dracula. Taken from The Literature Network

Stoker wrote so many literary works over his lifetime... just a sample are listed below. Many are non-fiction works including one that gave details (job description) for a clerk of the Petty Sessions. What a very interesting and smart man Stoker was. He was the business manager of the Lyceum Theater in London. The theater was owned by Stoker's friend Henry Irving, a well known actor of the day. Stoker's position gave him the ability to travel all over the world with Irving. It was on a vacation that the inspiration for Dracula came to Stoker. Stoker had been studying European folklore and vampire stories for eight years before penning the now classic Dracula. One interesting tidbit concerning the time frame that Stoker was living in London was the mystery of Jack the Ripper. Jack the Ripper did his "work" in 1888 and may have continued to 1891. I'm not sure why this is so interesting to me, but I wonder if that may have influenced Stoker as well. Nevertheless, Any one that loves vampires owes a great debt to Mr. Abraham Stoker. He laid the foundation for one of the scariest villains in the horror genre. Thank you Mr. Stoker!

Novels:
The Snake's Pass (1890)
The Watter's Mou' (1895)
The Shoulder of Shasta (1895)
Dracula (1897)[1]
Miss Betty (1898)
The Mystery of the Sea (1902)
The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903)
The Man (aka: The Gates of Life) (1905)
Lady Athlyne (1908)
The Lady of the Shroud (1909)
The Lair of the White Worm (1911)





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