Vampires, A Very Peculiar History by Fiona Macdonald

Author:Fiona Macdonald
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gift, information, facts, trivia, quirky, stories, dracula, classic, horror, stoker, character, monster, blood, animal, novel, gothic, romance, deadly, bat, immortal
ISBN: 9781908759443
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2012
Published: 2012-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

The English traveller (now returned home) sees Dracula, and collapses in terror: ‘It is the Count, but he has grown young. My God, if this be so! Oh, my God! My God!’

The man who dreamed up Dracula

Bram (Abraham) Stoker (1847–1912) was born in Dublin, Ireland. His family were prosperous, and he enjoyed a privileged education, first at school, then at Dublin University. As a young child, he was often ill, and spent months in bed. Later, he said that this gave him the chance to develop his imagination.

At university, Stoker studied mathematics, although his real interests were in history, myths, legends and Romantic poetry. After leaving university, Stoker followed his father into a respectable Civil Service career. But he felt restless, and escaped from the dull routine of his work by spending evenings in the theatre. There, he made friends with leading Irish authors, including the master of 19th- century horror-fiction, Sheridan Le Fanu, and the artistic, cultured mother of the dramatist Oscar Wilde. She was an expert in Irish folklore. Soon, Stoker began to write his own sinister, supernatural stories.

In 1878, Stoker married Florence Balcombe, an attractive Irish woman with progressive ideas, and moved to London to work as manager of the famous Lyceum Theatre and as personal secretary to superstar actor Henry Irving. These were busy, exciting and exhausting years, but somehow Stoker found time to go on writing. As well as Dracula, he published 12 full-length novels and a great many short stories and newspaper articles.

The Lyceum Theatre closed in 1902 and Henry Irving died in 1905. After this, Stoker became a full-time author, writing non-fiction ( Pesonal Reminiscences of Henry Irving and Famous Impostors) as well as novels. But none of his later works achieved the fame – or sales – of Dracula. Tired and ill, Bram Stoker died in 1912. He was 64.

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