Abraham "Bram" Stoker (November 8, 1847-April 20, 1912) was an Irish writer, best remembered as the author of the influential horror novel Dracula.
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 his Dracula, 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 (The Evening Mail). 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.
Dracula
He supplemented his income by writing a large number of sensational novels, his most famous being the vampire tale Dracula which he published in 1897. Parts of it are set around the town of Whitby, where he was living at the time. Before writing Dracula, Stoker spent eight years researching European folklore and stories of vampires. Though it is the most famous vampire novel ever, Dracula was not the first. It was preceded and partially inspired by Sheridan Le Fanu's 1871 Carmilla, about a lesbian vampire who preys upon a lonely young woman.
The name of Stoker's count was originally going to be Count Vampyre, but while doing research Stoker ran across an intriguing name: "Dracula", meaning "Son of the Dragon" or "Son of the Devil." This name belonged to a real 15th century nobleman, Prince Vlad Dracula, also known as Vlad the Impaler. The historic Dracula was the ruler of Wallachia, in modern day Romania. He is remembered as a patriotic hero by the Romanians for defending his country against Turkish invaders, but also gained a reputation for cruelty for his brutal executions of prisoners.
The novel does not make reference to the real Dracula other than to use his name and mention that Count Dracula had in life been a military leader who fought against the Turks. Early in the novel, the Count tells Jonathan Harker that his family had defended the church against the enemies of Christ many years before. However, the lack of historic detail, the shifting of Dracula's home from Wallachia to Transylvania, and the change of his title from prince to count make it seem likely that Stoker did not intend his Count Dracula to be the same person as the historic Vlad Dracula at all.
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. This literary style was considered rather old-fashioned at the time of the publication of Dracula, but it adds a sense of realism and provides the reader the perspective of most of the major characters.
Dracula has been the basis for countless films and plays. The two that most closely follow the plot of the original novel are Nosferatu (1922) and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). Nosferatu 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. The vampire in Nosferatu is called Count Orlock rather than Count Dracula. Bram Stoker's Dracula reimagines the Count as a tragic figure instead of a monster. It adds an opening sequence that focuses on the Count's Romanian background, and inserts a new romantic subplot into the story.
Stoker wrote several other novels dealing with horror and supernatural themes, but none achieved the lasting fame or success of Dracula. His other novels include The Snake's Pass (1890), The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903), and The Lair of the White Worm (1911).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_Stoker
