| Bram (Abraham) Stoker was born November 8, 1847 in Dublin, Ireland. His father was a civil servant and his mother was a charity worker and writer. Stoker was a sickly child and spent a lot of time in bed. Growing up his mother told him a lot of horror stories. Stoker studied Math at Trinity College Dublin and he graduated in 1867. After graduation he became a civil servant. At this time, he also worked as a free lance journalist, a drama critic and editor of the "Evening Mail". In 1876 he met Sir Henry Irving, a famous actor. Stoker accepted a job as a personal secretary to Irving and went to England in 1878. Before he left Ireland he published his first book "The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland" in 1878. While working for Irving he met an aspiring actress named Florence Balcombe. They were married 1878 and had one son, Noel, born 1879. In England he also began writing a series of novels and short stories the first of which was "The Snake's Pass". Although best known for "Dracula", Stoker wrote eighteen books before he died in 1912. Stoker died at the age of 64 of exhaustion. |