Abraham Stoker, born in Dublin in 1847, was confined to bed by illness until the age of eight. After completing his studies, he initially began a career as a civil servant, but soon moved to London, where he worked for 27 years as secretary and manager to the Shakespearean actor Henry Irving. Stoker died poor and unknown in London in 1912, ten years before his Dracula became the darkest hero in world literature thanks to Murnau's film Nosferatu. Today, Bram Stoker is known almost exclusively as the spiritual father of Dracula, although he also wrote short stories, theatre criticism, lectures and 16 other novels.
