Bram Stoker's Early Life

Bram Stoker was born on November 8,1847 and was known for his works of literary art throughout his life. He was born with the name Abraham Stoker in Dublin, Ireland.

Stoker was a sickly child, mostly bedridden during his early childhood years from an unknown illness. However, during this time period, his mother entertained him with stories and legends from Sligo, which included supernatural tales and accounts of death and disease. Especially influential to the mind of young stoker were the stories she related about the cholera epidemic of 1832 which claimed thousands of lives. By the age of seven, he had started school and made a complete recovery. Of this time, Stoker wrote, “ I was naturally thoughtful, and the leisure of long illness gave opportunity for many thoughts which were

In 1878, Stoker married Florence Balacombe, the actress who had the choice of marrying either him or Oscar Wilde. They were married from 1878 until his death in 1912. She outlived him of twenty-five years. They had one child together, Irving Noel Thornley, who lived from 1879 to 1961. Stoker left his job in Dublin and the couple upped and moved to London. It was when they moved that he became acquainted with many well-known actors and notable authors of the time such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, and William Butler Yeats. While not being involved in the theatre, including travelling with them on tours in Europe and North America which inspired A Glimpse of America (1886), Stoker started to write even more novels including The Primrose Path (1875), The Snake’s Pass (1890), The Watter’s Mou’ (1895), The Shoulder of Shasta (1895), Miss Betty (1898), and short stories collected in Under the Sunset (1881) (“Biography of Bram Stoker”). However, Stoker’s first book, The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland, a handbook in legal administration, was published in 1879 while he was still working as Irving’s