Writer of one of the world's most famous horror novels, Abraham "Bram" Stoker was born to the loosely defined socio-cultural group known as the Anglo-Irish. A Protestant Dubliner, he was the son of a civil servant, and he was expected to follow in his father's footsteps. As a child, Abraham Stoker was a sickly child often on the point of death; by his own account, he never stood upright without aid until he was seven years old. But he grew into a physically robust youth, excelling in athletics during his college years. At Trinity College, he studied mathematics and became president of the Philosophical Society and the Historical Society.
In the years between 1870 and 1877, he was a civil...