Abraham "Bram" Stoker (1847 – 1912) An Irish author, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula. During his lifetime, Bram Stoker was known mainly as the personal assistant of the famous British actor Henry Irving and business manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London, which Irving owned. Dracula (a Gothic horror novel, first published in 1897) tells the story of the vampire Count Dracula's attempt to move from Transylvania to England so that he may find new blood and spread the undead curse, and of the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing.