la at the Lyceum Theater. The program that day read Dracula or theUn-Dead, Stoker was still undecided about which he liked better. The name waschanged to the Un-Dead two days later, and to Dracula six days after that. Dracula debuted at booksellers on May 26th, 1897On Friday October 13th, 1905 five nights into a six night run of Tennysonsplay Becket as he left the stage after the performance he followed his normalroutine. He then got into a cab and rode to the Midland Hotel; when he entered thelobby he stumbled to the floor, after being helped to a chair he lost consciousnessand died, he was 67 years old. One year later Stoker published his novel PersonalReminiscences of Henry Irving.After Irvings death Stoker served on the literary staff of the DailyTelegraph, wrote articles for the New York World, and wrote extensively on thecensorship of novels of the day. On March 3rd, 1911 he began work on his lastnovel The Lair of the White Worm, which he completed on June 12th, that sameyear. Many historians attribute the books strange plot, about a 200 foot long and2000 year old giant worm-woman named Lady Arabella, to drug inducedhallucinations. In the last year of his life Stoker suffered from a number of illnesses from:Brights Disease (a painful kidney disease), gout, syphilis, and exhaustion. OnApril 15th, 1912 Florence Stoker rushed to her husbands bedroom to tell him thatthe luxury liner Titanic had sunk the night before. Five days later April 20th, theday the investigation into the Titanic disaster began, Bram Stoker died at the ageof 64. His death certificate listed three causes of death: Locomotor Ataxy (tertiarysyphilis), Granular Contracted Kidney (Brights Disease), and exhaustion. The story of Dracula has been played out many times over in Hollywoodwith the most famous being; Nosferatu (1928), Dracula (1931) starring BelaLugosi, Count Dracula (1971) starring Christopher Lee, and Bram StokersDracula (1992) starring Gary Oldman. It was...
