Abraham "Bram" Stoker (8 November 1847 – 20 April 1912) was an Irish author whose greatest and most lasting success was undoubtedly his prototypical 1897 vampire novel Dracula. In his own lifetime, he was best known as a theater manager and critic.
Apart from Dracula, Stoker penned about a dozen other novels, as well as a number of short stories. Most of these are less well known today (although The Jewel of Seven Stars and The Lair of the White Worm have also been adapted for the screen), but were popular enough in their time that many obituaries did not even mention Dracula. (That's when they ran obituaries for him at all, as the week of his death had another major news story which everyone was more focused on.)
The Horror Writers of America's Bram Stoker Award is named in his honor.
Works by Stoker with their own trope pages:
- Dracula
- The Jewel of Seven Stars
- The Lair of the White Worm (film version only)
Trope examples from Stoker's other works include:
- Hanging Judge: in "The Judge's House".
- Iron Maiden: "'The Squaw
" is focused on the iron maiden (referred to as "Iron Virgin" in the text) exhibited in Nuremberg Castle (the device really existed; it was destroyed by the Allied bombing of 1944). Its protagonists are three tourists who visit the castle, one of them an American who bribes the guide into binding him up and placing him inside the iron maiden and then nearly closing it on him, to know how a victim of this device would have felt. Before entering the castle, this man had unintentionally killed a kitten playing with its mother, by throwing a stone. While they're testing the iron maiden, the guide is attacked by the vengeful mother cat, and lets go of the rope holding the device's doors open; the heavy doors thus slam shut, killing the American. - Swarm of Rats: in "The Burial of the Rats".
Portrayals of Bram Stoker in fiction include:
- Dracula Unbound by Brian W. Aldiss
- The West End Horror by Nicholas Meyer (cameo appearance)
- Anno Dracula by Kim Newman: Stoker does not appear in person, having been arrested as a friend and suspected sympathizer of Harker and company when Dracula took control of England; his wife does appear, however. Several of the sequels mention him having written Dracula as an alternate history novel in which Dracula lost.
- In the Time Wars novel The Dracula Caper Stoker investigates Dracula's activities in England with Arthur Conan Doyle.
- He shows up in The Last American Vampire (sequel to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter), in the role of a "Renfield", or assistant/Secret-Keeper to a vampire. He first shows up here in 1888.
- In the Department 19 series by Will Hill, Stoker meets Dr. Van Helsing during an investigation of vampiric activity at the theater where he worked in real life.
- In the period-piece segments of mystery novel The Sherlockian, Stoker accompanies Arthur Conan Doyle on an investigation into a possible serial killer.
- The Dresden Files: While the man himself is long dead, he is mentioned to have been a living person who did author Dracula. His patron who had him write this book did so to create a hidden "How To" guide to identify and kill Black Court vampires for the common folk to stem the growth of this vampire court.
- In the Friday the 13th: The Series episode "The Baron's Bride", Micki and Ryan are transported to the 19th century, where they track down a vampire with the assistance of an Irishman named Abraham who they realize at the end was Bram Stoker.
- In the Houdini & Doyle episode "Strigoi", played by Paul Ritter.
- In the Showtime TV movie Burial of the Rats (executive produced by Roger Corman), played by Kevin Alber.
