47 Facts About Bram Stoker

Abraham Stoker was an Irish author who wrote the 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula.

Bram Stoker enjoyed travelling, particularly to Cruden Bay where he set two of his novels.

Bram Stoker died on 20 April 1912 due to locomotor ataxia and was cremated in north London.

Bram Stoker was born on 8 November 1847 at 15 Marino Crescent, Clontarf, on the northside of Dublin, Ireland.

Bram Stoker's parents were Abraham Stoker from Dublin and Charlotte Mathilda Blake Thornley, who was raised in County Sligo.

Bram Stoker was the third of seven children, the eldest of whom was Sir Thornley Bram Stoker, 1st Bt.

Bram Stoker was bedridden with an unknown illness until he started school at the age of seven, when he made a complete recovery.

Bram Stoker graduated with a BA in 1870, and paid to receive his MA in 1875.

Bram Stoker was named University Athlete, participating in multiple sports, including playing rugby for Dublin University.

Bram Stoker was auditor of the College Historical Society and president of the University Philosophical Society, where his first paper was on Sensationalism in Fiction and Society.

Bram Stoker became interested in the theatre while a student through his friend Dr Maunsell.

Theatre critics were held in low esteem at the time, but Bram Stoker attracted notice by the quality of his reviews.

Bram Stoker wrote stories, and "Crystal Cup" was published by the London Society in 1872, followed by "The Chain of Destiny" in four parts in The Shamrock.

In 1876, while a civil servant in Dublin, Bram Stoker wrote the non-fiction book The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland, which remained a standard work.

In 1878, Bram Stoker married Florence Balcombe, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel James Balcombe of 1 Marino Crescent.

Bram Stoker was a celebrated beauty whose former suitor had been Oscar Wilde.

Bram Stoker had known Wilde from his student days, having proposed him for membership of the university's Philosophical Society while he was president.

Wilde was upset at Florence's decision, but Bram Stoker later resumed the acquaintanceship, and, after Wilde's fall, visited him on the Continent.

On 31 December 1879, Bram and Florence's only child was born, a son whom they christened Irving Noel Thornley Stoker.

Bram Stoker was dedicated to Irving and his memoirs show he idolised him.

Bram Stoker set two of his novels in America, and used Americans as characters, the most notable being Quincey Morris.

Bram Stoker met one of his literary idols, Walt Whitman, having written to him in 1872 an extraordinary letter that some have interpreted as the expression of a deeply-suppressed homosexuality.

Bram Stoker was a regular visitor to Cruden Bay in Scotland between 1892 and 1910.

Bram Stoker started writing Dracula there in 1895 while in residence at the Kilmarnock Arms Hotel.

Bram Stoker visited the English coastal town of Whitby in 1890, and that visit was said to be part of the inspiration for Dracula.

Bram Stoker began writing novels while working as manager for Irving and secretary and director of London's Lyceum Theatre, beginning with The Snake's Pass in 1890 and Dracula in 1897.

Bram Stoker published his Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving in 1906, after Irving's death, which proved successful, and managed productions at the Prince of Wales Theatre.

Bram Stoker then spent several years researching Central and East European folklore and mythological stories of vampires.

The 1972 book In Search of Dracula by Radu Florescu and Raymond McNally claimed that the Count in Bram Stoker's novel was based on Vlad III Dracula.

However, according to Elizabeth Miller, Bram Stoker borrowed only the name and "scraps of miscellaneous information" about Romanian history; further, there are no comments about Vlad III in the author's working notes.

Dracula is an epistolary novel, written as a collection of realistic but completely fictional diary entries, telegrams, letters, ship's logs, and newspaper clippings, all of which added a level of detailed realism to the story, a skill which Bram Stoker had developed as a newspaper writer.

Bram Stoker was a member of The London Library and conducted much of the research for Dracula there.

In 2018, the Library discovered some of the books that Bram Stoker used for his research, complete with notes and marginalia.

Bram Stoker was cremated, and his ashes were placed in a display urn at Golders Green Crematorium in north London.

Bram Stoker was raised a Protestant in the Church of Ireland.

Bram Stoker was a strong supporter of the Liberal Party and took a keen interest in Irish affairs.

Bram Stoker remained an ardent monarchist who believed that Ireland should remain within the British Empire, an entity that he saw as a force for good.

Bram Stoker was an admirer of Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, whom he knew personally, and supported his plans for Ireland.

Bram Stoker believed in progress and took a keen interest in science and science-based medicine.

Some of Bram Stoker's novels represent early examples of science fiction, such as The Lady of the Shroud.

Bram Stoker had a writer's interest in the occult, notably mesmerism, but despised fraud and believed in the superiority of the scientific method over superstition.

Brodie-Innis, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and hired member Pamela Colman Smith as an artist for the Lyceum Theatre, but no evidence suggests that Bram Stoker ever joined the Order himself.

Florence Bram Stoker eventually sued the filmmakers, and was represented by the attorneys of the British Incorporated Society of Authors.

Canadian writer Dacre Stoker, a great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker, decided to write "a sequel that bore the Stoker name" to "reestablish creative control over" the original novel, with encouragement from screenwriter Ian Holt, because of the Stokers' frustrating history with Dracula's copyright.

In spring 2012, Dacre Stoker presented the "lost" Dublin Journal written by Bram Stoker, which had been kept by his great-grandson Noel Dobbs.

On 8 November 2012, Bram Stoker was honoured with a Google Doodle on Google's homepage commemorating the 165th anniversary of his birth.

The 2014 Bram Stoker Festival encompassed literary, film, family, street, and outdoor events, and ran from October 24 to 27 in Dublin.