Abraham Jr. was a theater critic for the Dublin Evening Mail in Dublin, Ireland during the 1870s. At the time, theater critics were held in low esteem. Stars of the stage avoided reading reviews by other critics, but there was something different about Abraham’s reviews. Even when being critical of a performance, Abraham wrote in such a way that made the performers feel at ease. Abraham’s writing quickly gained him recognition, and he befriended several leading stage performers, one of which was Henry Irving.

Henry Irving was an English classical actor and manager. Unlike most actors of the Victorian era who only acted in performances, Henry took full responsibility for all aspects of the stages on which he performed including the supervision of sets, props, lighting, directing, and casting. Theater managers continued to control the business side of the theaters. In 1874, Henry starred in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” at the Lyceum Theatre in London’s famed West End. The play ran for an unheard of 200 performances and was Henry’s greatest triumph. In 1878, a row between Henry and the manager of the Lyceum grew so heated that the manager quit and began managing another theater. The strain of managing the stage as well as the business affairs of the Lyceum quickly grew to be more than Henry could handle. He needed help.

Abraham had just married a celebrated beauty named Florence Balcombe when he got a job offer from Henry. Henry wanted Abraham to move to London to be the business manager of the Lyceum and, to ease his burden even more, to be Henry’s personal assistant. It was an offer Abraham could not refuse. Abraham and his new bride quickly moved to London where he worked in this capacity until Henry Irving died in 1905. During those 27 years, Abraham traveled the world as Henry’s assistant. In 1894, Abraham, Florence, and their son Irving Noel, named in honor of Henry Irving, took a much-needed break at the Kilmarnock Arms Hotel on the northeastern coast of Scotland. Abraham and his family took the half mile walk to the cliffs overlooking the North Sea to see the remains of Slains Castle. While walking through the ruins of the castle’s many rooms including the octagonal hall, Abraham got the idea for a new play which would naturally feature Henry as the lead character. Back at the hotel, Abraham jotted down some of his ideas before he returned to London. He continued to work on the play during his limited free time.

Two years later, Abraham and Florence took another break and stayed in a guesthouse overlooking the North Sea in Whitby, England. He walked to the shoreline and back up the 199 steps to the graveyard of St. Mary’s Church and visited the ruins of Whitby Abbey. This visit stirred Abraham’s imagination, and he rushed back to the guesthouse and began writing. Before leaving Whitby, Abraham visited the public library and accidentally came across a word in a book which he misinterpreted. It was the perfect name for the lead character in his play, but by this time Abraham had decided to publish it as a play and a novel. Unfortunately, for reasons that remain unclear, Henry never played the lead character that Abraham had created for him. Abraham’s book is still popular today, but no one knows the author as Abraham. Abraham Jr. went by another name to differentiate him from his father. Family, friends, and eventually the whole world knew Abraham Jr. as Bram Stoker. The word he misinterpreted as meaning “Devil” was Dracula.