Bram Stoker (1847-1912) was born in Dublin, the third of seven children. He
was a sickly child and didn't gain his strength until he was about seven.
He studied at Trinity College Dublin, then worked for a short time as a Civil
Servant.
As president of the university Philosophical Society, he introduced Oscar
Wilde. He travelled to London where he became a close friend of Henry Irving.
He was secretary to Irving, manager of the Lyceum Theatre and Irving's theatre
company. He met the American poet Walt Whitman (1884). He died in 1912 at the
age of 64, possibly from syphilis.
Bram Stoker was the author of several books, of which the only success was
Dracula, which has never been out of print.
Bram Stoker's first foray into Gothic horror was the short story The Chain of
Destiny (1875), serialised in the weekly Shamrock. He wrote several other
horror stories, the most notable, and weirdest, was his last, The Lair of the
White Worm (November 1911), where the beautiful but evil Lady Arabella, was in
reality a white worm living in a foul-smelling well beneath her mansion.