Before Vampires Sparkled

Abraham “Bram” Stoker, the Irish writer who created Dracula in 1897, was born 165 years ago today. Though we try to keep our eyes on birthdays, this one was particularly difficult to miss as it’s been commemorated by Google doodle.

Stoker was born in Dublin in 1847 and though he wrote a dozen novels and armloads of short stories, it is his fifth novel, Dracula, for which he is most remembered.