Without Dracula (1897), Bram Stoker would be forgotten. As it is, he is one of the least-known authors of one of the best-known books. Dracula was his masterpiece, and a writer only needs one of those to achieve immortality; but Stoker was obscured by his creation of Count Dracula, just as Mary Shelley is hardly remembered though Frankenstein is a household word.

Stoker led a varied literary life which has been overshadowed by his most successful work. But Stoker's career ranged from rather strange children's stories to nonfiction to a handful of romances. Still, even Dracula is often relegated to the rank of second-rate literature, as a work which is of interest not as much for its literary merit as for its intriguingly macabre subject matter. As Anthony Boucher suggests, Dracula is "a masterpiece of a kind, if not a literary one."

Abraham ("Bram") Stoker was born on 8 November...