Bram Stoker was born Abraham Stoker (like our friend, Professor Van Helsing) Nov. 8, 1847, in Clontarf (a suburb of Dublin), Ireland. He died April 20, 1912, of an illness and/or exhaustion. Stoker's final resting place is Golders Green Crematorium in London, England; click here to see a photo of the grave, as pictured on the "Find A Grave" web site. Also buried at Golders Green are Sir James Dewar (inventor of the thermos), the Freuds, Frederick Kerr (who played Baron Frankenstein in the 1931 Frankenstein), Vivien Leigh (cremated), Peter Sellers, and H.G. Wells.

In addition to his masterpiece, Dracula (published May 26, 1897), Stoker's works include The Snake's Pass (1890), Mystery of the Sea (1902), The Jewel of the Seven Stars (1903), Personal Reminisces of Henry Irving (1906), The Lady of the Shroud (1909), Famous Imposters (1910), The Lair of the White Worm (1911), and Dracula's Guest (published posthumously in 1914).

The Lair of the White Worm was turned into a cult classic flick in 1988 that a lot of people have yet to see. It's truly wack. It stars Hugh Grant as Lord James D'Ampton and has such memorable scenes as a possessed cop playing the bagpipes, a game of "Snakes and Ladders," and a raunchy dream in which Grant is tied up while in an airplane. The worm is pretty cool, too.

During his research for Dracula, Stoker learned that "Dracula" comes from the Romanian word for "devil" or "dragon." His working notes can be studied by appointment at the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. You'll find that Stoker's original concept had quite a slate of characters, including a deaf mute woman, a detective, and a friend of Mina's named Kate Reed. If you do go to the Rosenbach, stay just around the corner at the Sheraton Rittenhouse Square (18th & Locust Streets).

Besides being the author of our favorite novel, Stoker also managed the Lyceum Theatre in London. The head of the Lyceum was domineering actor Henry Irving, a close friend of Stoker's. Their relationship has been compared to that of Renfield (Stoker) and Dracula (Irving). There's a great rendering of Irving as Mephistopheles in Faust on the cover of the Norton Critical Edition of Dracula.

Other interesting notes on Stoker's life and works: Stoker married Florence Balcombe in 1878; she had at one time also been proposed to by author Oscar Wilde. The Stokers had one child, Noel Thornley (1879-1961). Stoker attended Trinity College in Dublin. Dracula is an epistolary novel (one that is written in the form of letters, diaries, journals - and nowadays even faxes and emails). Stoker died six days after the Titanic hit the iceberg. The first film based on Dracula was Nosferatu (1922); Stoker's widow denied director F.W. Murnau permission to make a film based on Dracula and although a German court ordered all prints of it destroyed, a few survived.