Bram Stoker (November 8, 1847 – April 20, 1912) was an Irish writer best known as the author of Dracula. He was born the third of seven children in the seaside town of Clonarf outside Dublin. After graduating from Trinity College he worked as a civil servant and wrote theatre reviews for the Dublin Mail. His involvement in the theatre led to a lifelong friendship with English stage actor Henry Irving, who was a model for the mannerisms of Count Dracula. Following his marriage to Irish beauty Florence Balcombe the couple moved to London, where Stoker became the business manager for Irving’s Lyceum Theatre, a position which gave him entry into London’s high society and artistic circles as well as the opportunity to travel the world with Irving’s tours. He supplemented his income by writing many sensational novels, most notably Dracula, which was inspired by the town of Whitby and the bleak landscape at Slain’s Castle near Aberdeen, and which was the product of eight years of research into European folklore and vampire stories, especially the dark stories of Hungarian writer Armin Vambery. In the course of his travels he visited the White House and met William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt and his idol Walt Whitman, among others. He died in London in 1912 after a series of strokes.
