Stoker, Bram (1847–1912)

Irish novelist, actor, theatre manager, and author. Born in Dublin, he was educated there at Trinity College, and followed his father into the civil service. His celebrated novel Dracula (1897) crystallized most aspects of the traditional vampire legend and became the source for all subsequent fiction and films on the subject.

Stoker wrote a number of other stories and novels of fantasy and horror, such as The Lady of the Shroud (1909). Employed as a civil servant 1866–78, he was subsequently business manager to the theatre producer Henry Irving at the Lyceum Theatre, London 1878–1905.