Irish author Bram Stoker (1847–1912), best known for writing Dracula (1897), studied mathematics at University of Dublin’s Trinity College, graduating with honors in 1870. After a brief career at Dublin Castle as a civil servant with a side hustle as a theatre critic for the Dublin Evening Mail, Stoker became a long-time manager of the Lyceum Theater in London’s West End as the personal assistant of Sir Henry Irving, a famous actor of that era. Stoker’s first novel, The Primrose Path, was published in 1875, and his last, The Lair of the White Worm, in 1911.
Stoker’s fascination with Egyptology, mummification, and the supernatural is evident in The Jewel of Seven Stars, a Gothic horror story, the first edition of which had a somewhat ambiguous and tragic ending. When the second edition was published in 1912, Stoker had replaced the ending for a new happier one. Stoker died in London of exhaustion at sixty-four years old, leaving behind a wife, Florence, and son, Noel. His remains were cremated, and his urn is displayed at the Golders Green Crematorium and Mausoleum, keeping company with the likes of Sigmund Freud, Peter Sellers, and Keith Moon.