A short story by Bram Stoker, the legendary author of ‘Dracula’, has been unearthed by a lifelong enthusiast in Dublin who came across the work while browsing a library archive.
The story, entitled “Gibbet Hill”, was discovered by Brian Cleary in a Christmas supplement to the 1890 Dublin edition of the Daily Mail newspaper and had remained undocumented for more than 130 years.
The rare find, which is not referred to in any of Stoker’s bibliography or biography, is now on public display for the first time at an exhibition in the Irish capital.
“Dracula,” the 1897 Gothic, mysterious and supernatural vampire novel, may have been set in Transylvania and England, but its author, Stoker, was a Dubliner.
“I read ‘Dracula’ as a child and it stuck with me. I read everything by and about Stoker I could get my hands on,” says Cleary, 44, a writer and amateur historian who lives in Dublin’s Marino district. the author grew up.
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Thanks to “Dracula,” Stoker “had a huge impact on popular culture, but he is underappreciated,” Cleary told AFP at the Casino of Marino, a lavish 18th-century building near the writer’s birthplace, where the exhibition is taking place.
Stoker never enjoyed much commercial success with his legendary book, but in 1931 “Dracula” made it big as a film, with Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi in the title role. Shocking for its time, the film made Dracula a fixture in popular culture and inspired literally dozens of film and TV vampire dramas over the years.
“I found something extraordinary”
Cleary’s journey of discovery began in 2021 when a sudden onset of deafness changed his life.
While on leave to retrain his hearing after cochlear implant surgery, Cleary visited the National Library of Ireland to indulge his interest in historical literature and the works of Stoker.
There, in October 2023, he came across the hidden literary gem, the story of ‘Gibbet Hill’, which he had never heard of.
“I sat in the library bewildered because I was looking at a potentially lost ghost story by Stoker, especially one from when he was writing ‘Dracula,’ with elements of ‘Dracula’ in it,” Cleary said.
“I sat there looking at the screen wondering, am I the only living person who has read it? Followed by, what the hell am I supposed to do with it?”
According to the BBC, the library’s director, Audrey Whitty, said Cleary called her and said: “I’ve found something extraordinary in your newspaper archives – you won’t believe it.”
She added that his “amazing amateur detective work” was a testament to the library’s archives, the BBC reported. “There are truly world-important discoveries waiting to be discovered,” Whitty said.
Cleary conducted extensive literary searches to verify the find and consulted Stoker expert and biographer Paul Murray, who confirmed that the story was unknown, lost and buried in the archives for more than 130 years.
“‘Gibbet Hill’ is very important in terms of Stoker’s development as a writer. In 1890 he was a young writer and made his first notes for ‘Dracula’,” Murray told AFP.
“It’s a classic Stoker story, the battle between good and evil, evil emerging in exotic and unexplained ways, and a way station on his route to the publication of ‘Dracula’.”
The macabre story tells of a sailor who was murdered by three criminals, whose bodies were hung from a gallows or hung from a gallows on a hill as a ghostly warning to passing travelers.
To celebrate the discovery, “Gibbet Hill” has been captured in a book with cover art and illustrations inspired by the story of respected Irish artist Paul McKinley.
“It’s quite surreal now to be standing next to a photo inspired by three of the characters in the story,” Cleary said.
“When Brian sent me the ‘Gibbet Hill,’ there was so much I could work with,” McKinley said.
His creepy, sometimes sinister illustrations include a “juicy, wet, oily painting” of worms, inspired by a young character in the story who holds a bunch of earthworms in his hands.
“Creating new images for an old story that has been buried for so long” was a “fascinating challenge,” said the artist.
