Abraham Stoker was born on 8th November 1847 in Dublin, Ireland.

Very early in childhood he was bedridden with an unknown ailment and did not walk until he was seven. During this time he watched the world from his bedroom window, was read to by his parents, and learned to read. He became fascinated with storms, shipwrecks, and the supernatural.

Luckily he grew out of this childhood ailment, and went on to become a champion athlete at Trinity College, Dublin, from which he graduated with degrees in science and pure mathematics.

He went to work at Dublin Castle as a civil service clerk (as his father had been), but he became bored with it and then met Sir Henry Irving, the actor. He teamed up with Irving and went off to London to run the Lyceum Theatre. Together they made the Lyceum the cultural heart of London.

As a theatre manager he proved to be an innovator. He was the first to number seats, to promote advance reservations, and to advertise an entire season rather than one play at a time. He also organized tours, and the Lyceum, was the first company to tour with their own costumes and sets.

He married Florence Anne Lemon Balcombe on 4th December 1878, a well-known Dublin beauty (who was also being courted by Oscar Wilde). They had one son, Noel, born in 1879.

He died, from kidney failure, on 20th April 1912 at his London home, aged 65.

He had always wanted to be known as a literary man and did write several books but, to the public at large, he is remembered only as the author of Dracula

It is of interest to note that the two books which gave us the two best-known creatures of evil were written in the same century. The one at the beginning of the century was Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (in 1818) and the other, at the end, was Bram Stoker's Dracula (in 1897).

Dracula is second only to Sherlock Holmes in being the character most often used by the film-makers. Of course this must be partly due to the fact that there were originally 60 stories created about Sherlock Holmes, but only 1 about Dracula.