Bram Stoker's Dracula

For anyone who can't remember, the story goes something like this: Young solicitor by the name of Jonathan Harker is sent to Transylvania to visit a client. He says goodbye to his fiancee Wilhelmina Murray, also called Mina, and travels abroad to discuss business with Count Dracula. Upon arrival, he is given a room but the Count does not seem to be in a hurry to conduct business, and Harker soon realizes that he is a prisoner rather than a guest. In the castle, he meets three ladies who show an overly keen interest in his blood. Harker barely escapes the unwelcome attention, and the castle, with his llife but does not make it back in time to London to prevent the sinister Count from meeting Mina. Shortly after the Count's arrival, Mina's best friend Lucy is starting to waste away and her concerned suitor, Dr Seward, contacts his old mate Abraham van Helsing to find a diagnosis for the disease. Van Helsing spots the pricks at the neck at once but is not able to safe Lucy who dies shortly after. She is duly buried, when the neighbour kids start complaining about being stalked by a pretty lady that looks like Lucy. Van Helsing takes action and beheads the undead Lucy, whille Mina goes to, and returns from Budapest where she met up with Jonathan. The pair is now married, but that does not prevent Mina from having some hankypanky with the Count, who not only feeds on her, but also feeds her his blood, thereby creating a telepathic bond between them. As van Helsing, Jonathan Harker and their friends close in on Dracula, the count flees to his castle. The vampire hunters chase after and mamange to kill the Count in his coffin, but not before they loose one of their own. Happy end: Mina is released from the cursed bond, and lives happily ever after with Jonathan.

Born in Dublin in 1847 to a protestant Irish family, Stoker had a decent upbringing, a decent education at Trinity College and a decent job with the goverment. He had been ill as a child, but outgrew the weakness and became an outstanding athlete. As a sideline, he also worked as an unpaid theatre critic for various newspapers. On one occasion, he met the actor Sir Henry Irving, one of his idols, who soon after offered him a job as manager at the Lytheum Theatre in London. Stoker packed in his government job, and left for London. For the next 26 years, until Irving's death in 1906, Stoker's biggest claim to fame was his position as private secretary to Irving, and manager of the Lytheum Theatre. He published his first novel in 1875, followed by several others until Dracula came out in 1897. It might not have had the big success he expected, but he gained one fan: Arthur Conan Doyle, inventor of Sherlock Holmes, liked the book, and the characters. When his boss died in 1906, Stoker suffered a stroke, presumably out of shock over the demise of his patron. Even though he kept getting further strokes, he continued to write and published a further three novels before he died in 1912. Next to Dracula, The Jewel of the Seven Stars is probably his second most famous book. This lens writer, however, has a thing for The Lair of the White Worm which includes beautiful ladies that transform into snakes, mongoose attacks and probably the most ridiculous, improbable plot imaginable.