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Bram Stoker’s original name was Abraham Stoker. He was born in
Dublin, Ireland, on 8th November 1847 and was the third of seven
children. He was an invalid and was bedridden in his childhood home
in Marino Crescent. He had a troubled childhood, had late
development of speech and couldn’t walk until he was seven years
old. He joined the Trinity College in Dublin at the age of sixteen
and overcoming his previous handicaps, excelled in sports like
football and athletics and was even awarded the University Athletics
Championship.
While at University he developed a great fondness for
theatre and his idol was the then famous actor Henry Irving. He followed in his
father’s footsteps and joined the civil service in 1870 but as the years went by
he became more and more interested in theatre and the arts. During his next year
he became an unpaid critic for The Dublin Mail Newspaper and continued so for
many years to follow. In 1876 he married a lady called Florence. In 1878, he
finally made an acquaintance with his idol Henry Irving and there started a
great friendship between the two. In the same year he was appointed the manager
of the London Lyceum Theatre and continued with this post for the next
twenty-seven years until the death of Henry Irving. |
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He was a hard working and dedicated manager and
accompanying Henry Irving on his tours to America and handling all his
correspondence, sometimes replying to as many as fifty letters a day for him. It
is said to be his careful management, which was responsible for the success and
smooth running of the theatre.
Later in life he became a writer and wrote a number of
novels like ‘ The Snakes Pass’, ‘The Mystery of the Sea’, ‘The Jewel of Seven
Stars’ and ‘The Lady and the Shroud’, but he has been immortalized for his
classic, 'Dracula'.
In 1905, Henry Irving died and shortly after Stoker
suffered a serious stroke. He recovered sufficiently to continue writing until
his death at the age of sixty. He is said to have died from exhaustion. His book
‘Dracula’ lives on even today and is still is a source of inspiration for many
authors and movie makers. The unique concept for his book he is said to have got
from a close friend, a professor from the University in Budapest. It was he who
first told Stoker about the Vampire legends of Transylvania. Fascinated by the
subject, Stoker started doing research about the Vampire legends of various
European countries. The vampires of Transylvania were undead people who rose
from their graves and tried to steal a person’s strength or beauty, whereas the
Greek legends spoke of Vampires as blood sucking monsters. In addition to
researching these legends, he also did research on Vampire bats, which are small
mice sized mammals found in Central America who suck blood from sleeping
animals. Stoker put together all this research and made it a base for his story.
The main character of his story, the vampire Count Dracula, he based on a real
life character, Prince Vlad Dracula, who was a wicked prince of Hungary better
known as Vlad the Impaler, who was responsible for impaling and killing hundreds
of people. A Transylvanian countess Elizabeth Bathory, who was once renowned for
her beauty, who in her old age murdered young girls and drank their blood in a
bid to regain her youth, also influenced him.
Bram Stoker used all this to create an intriguing masterpiece of horror, which
stands unparalleled in English Literature.
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