I remembered back in middle school, my English teacher wanted to cover Edgar Allen Poe. She thought it’d be an appropriate topic since it was Halloween. I, however, thought she’d cover someone else, like Bram Stoker. When I told her this, she simply smiled at me, and said, “Probably in the next 7 years.”

“So by the time I go to college.”

“Will you be here?”

“Yes.”

Unfortunately, I’m in my senior year of college. And I still haven’t been back to my middle school to hear her lecture on Bram Stoker.

As you may or may not know, Bram Stoker is a famous novelist who penned the infamous story, Dracula. The Gothic novel is so gruesome that it has become embedded in the imagination of the entire world. In fact, it was so impactful that various movies, plays, and stories were inspired from it. An award, The Bram Stoker Award, has even been named after him. But who exactly is Bram Stoker? Who was the man behind this famous novel? And why did it terrify so many people?

To start off, Bram Stoker was an Irish writer. He was particularly famous for his dark, romantic works, from the mythological temptations of The Snake’s Pass to the compelling intrigue of The Mystery of the Sea. Raised with a Protestant background, he eventually became interested in science, and was a believer in progress. He was also interested in the occult, and often relied on friends to find out more information about such things. He became a business manager for the Lyceum, and was soon involved in London’s high society, where he met the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle. He had an eventful life, and after a series of strokes, he finally died in London.

Bram Stoker was one of the highlights of the Romantic era. Dark romanticism, however, was his home. Dark romanticism is considered a sub-genre of romanticism, and has often concentrated on dark subjects such as the supernatural and insanity. While it often had its critics, there’s no doubt that Stoker had become entranced with this movement. Because of this, he managed to pen many of his works, including the infamous Dracula.

Dracula is the tale of a young woman who had fallen into the clutches of a vampire. With the help of her loved ones, as well as the famed vampire hunter himself, Van Helsing, the vampire was eventually defeated, leaving the protagonists with a bittersweet, yet happy end, the darkness still haunting them. The elements found in this story are as horrific as they are enchanting. While many readers simply love the adventure, other scholars have debated on what the characters mean. In fact, one scholar, Christopher Craft, has even seen Dracula as a symbol for homosexuality and gender fluidity. Even so, others have seen the work as historically relevant, comparing aspects of the novel to details of colonialism. Many see Dracula as a symbol for capitalism and the elites’ inability to empathize with the common man. But most importantly, because of the darkness that the creature represents, the eternity of living alone, perhaps even the degradation of what could have been, indeed, Dracula represents many things for us.

Bram Stoker is a sort of window into what horror literature used to be like. From the macabre obsession with the supernatural, to the mysteries hidden within the shadows, Bram Stoker masterfully crafted these elements within his famed novel. Not only that, but the characters themselves represent something even darker, something that the reader dares not acknowledge, much less understand. There’s no doubt that Bram Stoker, as well as his work, has introduced us to the basic elements of the horror genre, something we as writers build upon and have taken inspiration from.