An amateur historian has discovered a long-lost short story by Bram Stoker, published just seven years before his legendary gothic novel Dracula. Brian Cleary stumbled upon the 134-year-old ghostly tale while browsing the archives of the National Library of Ireland.
Gibbet Hill was originally published in a Dublin newspaper in 1890 - when the Irishman started working on Dracula - but has been undocumented ever since. Stoker biographer Paul Murray says the story sheds light on his development as an author and was a significant “station on his route to publishing Dracula”. The ghostly story tells the tale of a sailor murdered by three criminals whose bodies were strung up on a hanging gallows as a warning to passing travellers.
It is set in Gibbet Hill in Surrey, a location also referenced in Charles Dickens’ 1839 novel Nicholas Nickleby. Mr Cleary made the discovery after taking time off work following a sudden onset of hearing loss in 2021 - during which period he would pass the time at the national library in Stoker's native Dublin.
In October 2023, the Stoker fan came across an unfamiliar title in an 1890 Christmas supplement of the Daily Express Dublin Edition.
Mr Clearly told the AFP news agency: "I read the words Gibbet Hill and I knew that wasn't a Bram Stoker story that I had ever heard of in any of the biographies or bibliographies."
“And I was just astounded, flabbergasted. I sat looking at the screen wondering, am I the only living person who had read it?” He said of the moment he made the discovery: “What on earth do I do with it?”
The library's director Audrey Whitty said Mr Cleary called her and said: "I’ve found something extraordinary in your newspaper archives - you won’t believe it." She added that his "astonishing amateur detective work" was a testament to the library's archives. "There are truly world-important discoveries waiting to be found", she said.
After his initial sleuthing, Mr Cleary contacted biographer Paul Murray - who confirmed there had been no trace of the story for over a century. He said 1890 was when he was a young writer and made his first notes for Dracula. "It's a classic Stoker story, the struggle between good and evil, evil which crops up in exotic and unexplained ways," he added.
Gibbet Hill is being published alongside artwork by the Irish artist Paul McKinley by the Rotunda Foundation - the fundraising arm of Dublin's Rotunda Hospital for which Mr Cleary worked. All proceeds will go to the newly formed Charlotte Stoker Fund - named after Bram Stoker’s mother who was a hearing loss campaigner - to fund research on infant hearing loss.
The discovery is also being highlighted in the city's Bram Stoker festival later this month.
Written by: Maia Davies, for BBC
