Long-lost short story by Bram Stoker, author of 'Dracula', discovered and made public



A short story written in 1890 by

Bram Stoker, the author of the horror novel ' Dracula ,' which was published in 1897 and established the setting for the vampire legend, and then lost for over 100 years, has been discovered by an amateur historian in Ireland.

gibbet-hill/story.md at main · mmastrac/gibbet-hill · GitHub
https://github.com/mmastrac/gibbet-hill/blob/main/story.md

Dublin City Council Bram Stoker Festival An Extraordinary Bram Stoker Discovery: Gibbet Hill (Worldwide Exclusive) - Dublin City Council Bram Stoker Festival
https://bramstokerfestival.com/en/events/an-extraordinary-bram-stoker-discovery/

Published in 1897, 'Dracula' tells the story of Count Dracula , a Transylvanian nobleman and vampire, who travels to England and is defeated by a group including Professor Abraham Van Helsing . This story has since been adapted into many films, and Count Dracula has become synonymous with vampires, and is also said to have established the concept of vampires.

Brian Cleary, an Irish amateur historian who is a big fan of Stoker, the author of Dracula, was browsing the archives at the National Library of Ireland in October 2023 when he discovered a short story by Stoker titled 'Gibbet Hill' in the 1890 Christmas special edition of the Daily Express Dublin Edition.



'I've never read any biographies or documents about Bram Stoker with a title like 'Gibbet Hill,' so I'm just astounded by this discovery,' Cleary said. Cleary then contacted Audrey Whitty, director of the National Library of Congress, and told her, 'You're not going to believe this, but I've made an important discovery in the newspaper archives.'

The newly discovered Gibbet Hill is a ghost story that begins with 'a sailor murdered by three criminals on Gibbet Hill in Surrey being hanged from a gallows as a warning to passing travellers.' According to biographer Paul Murray, who investigated the story at Cleary's request, there was no evidence that the story had been published in a newspaper for over a century.

'The year 1890 saw the publication of Gibbet Hill, around the time Stoker began making the first notes for Dracula,' Murray said. 'The story is a classic Stoker tale, with a struggle between good and evil, and evil manifesting in exotic and inexplicable ways.'

'Mr Cleary's 'amazing feat of amateur history' has been made possible thanks to the library's archives,' Whitty said. 'This is a major discovery for Stoker.'



Gibbet Hill is being

published by the Rotunda Foundation, the fundraising arm of the Rotunda Hospital where Cleary works. The Rotunda Foundation has pledged to donate all proceeds from the sale of the book to the Charlotte Stoker Foundation, a research foundation for neonatal hearing loss. The Charlotte Stoker Foundation was named after Stoker's mother, Charlotte Stoker, who advocated for more education for the deaf.

In addition, Cleary and others will give a lecture on this discovery at the Bram Stoker Festival to be held in Dublin from October 25 to 28, 2024.

The newly discovered 'Gibbet Hill' has been scanned and published on GitHub, and the full text can also be read from the following page.

gibbet-hill/story.md at main · mmastrac/gibbet-hill · GitHub
https://github.com/mmastrac/gibbet-hill/blob/main/story.md



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