Abraham 'Bram' Stoker (1847 - 1912) was a sickly child unable to stand until he was seven
years old and spent the majority of his childhood reading before defying the odds by becoming
a champion athlete at Trinity College Dublin. Starting his career as an Irish civil servant
his love of theatre led him to become an unpaid drama critic for the Dublin Mail and later
manager and secretary for the famous actor Sir Henry Irving. He also wrote a dozen books of
which Dracula (1897) is without doubt the most famous. An immediate bestseller in Victorian
England Stoker's masterpiece of the macabre has remained popular ever since as testified by
the countless film adaptations of the novel.
