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Dracula Author Biography

Bram Stoker was born Abraham Stoker on November 8, 1847, in Clontarf, north of Dublin, Ireland. Stoker was the third of seven children, and he was violently ill as a child. When he was sick, Stoker read many books and listened to the horror tales his mother told him. These led Stoker to start writing ghost stories, even as a child. After graduating from Trinity College, Dublin in 1868 with honors in mathematics, Stoker took a civil service position, but he most enjoyed going to the theater in his free time. In 1871, when local critics did not comment on a performance of Henry Irving—Stoker's favorite actor—Stoker offered to write an unpaid review of the performance for the Dublin Mail. Stoker continued to write unpaid reviews for the newspaper for several years. When Irving returned to Dublin to perform in 1876, Irving read Stoker's celebratory review of the actor's performance...
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