Bram Stoker – late 19th–early 20th-century Irish writer, author of Dracula, a classic of Gothic fiction that shaped the modern vampire myth. For years he managed Henry Irving’s London theatre. His works combined mysticism, Victorian anxieties, and romantic imagination.
🩸 Dracula (1897) established the archetypal vampire from Transylvania. 🎭 For over 25 years, Stoker managed London’s Lyceum Theatre with actor Henry Irving. 📖 Inspired partly by tales of Vlad the Impaler. 🌍 The novel blends folklore with modern technologies (telegraph, steamships). 📚 Also wrote other horror and adventure novels beyond Dracula. 📰 Worked as a journalist and literary critic. 💔 Spent much of his childhood bedridden due to illness. 📚 Dracula had modest success at first, true fame came in the 20th century via cinema. 😲 Curious fact: the first U.S. edition of Dracula was abridged without his approval. 😄 Funny fact: Stoker had a lifelong phobia of cats and avoided them entirely.