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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.
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 moviemakers. 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 reknowed 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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