DUBLIN: A short story by Bram Stoker, the legendary author of “Dracula”, has been unearthed by a lifelong enthusiast in Dublin who stumbled upon the work while browsing in a library archive.

Titled “Gibbet Hill”, the story was uncovered by Brian Cleary in a Christmas supplement of the Dublin edition of the Daily Mail newspaper from 1890 and had remained undocumented for more than 130 years.

The rare find, which has never been referenced in any Stoker bibliography or biography, is now being brought to the public for the first time at an exhibition in the Irish capital. “Dracula”, the Gothic, mysterious and supernatural vampire novel from 1897 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 from and about Stoker that I could get my hands on,” said Cleary, 44, a writer and amateur historian who lives in the Marino neighbourhood of Dublin where the author grew up.

Thanks to “Dracula”, Stoker “had a massive impact on popular culture, but is under-appreciated”, Cleary said in the Casino at Marino, an opulent 18th-century building near the writer’s birthplace that is hosting the exhibition.

‘Flabbergasted’

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 having cochlear implant surgery, Cleary visited the National Library of Ireland to indulge his interest in historical literature and the works of Stoker. There, in Oct 2023, he chanced upon the hidden literary gem, the “Gibbet Hill” story which he had never heard of before. “I sat in the library flabbergasted, that I was looking at potentially a lost ghost story from Stoker, especially one from around the time he was writing ‘Dracula’, with elements of ‘Dracula’ in it,” said Cleary.

“I sat looking at the screen wondering, am I the only living person who had read it? Followed by, what on earth do I do with it?” Cleary did extensive literary searches to verify the find and consulted Stoker expert and biographer Paul Murray who confirmed the story was unknown, lost and buried in the archives for more than 130 years.

“‘Gibbet Hill’ is very significant in terms of Stoker’s development as a writer, 1890 was when he was a young writer and made his first notes for ‘Dracula’,” Murray said. “It’s a classic Stoker story, the struggle between good and evil, evil which crops up in exotic and unexplained ways, and is a way station on his route to publishing ‘Dracula’.”

Illustrations

The macabre tale tells of a sailor murdered by three criminals whose bodies were strung up on a gibbet or hanging gallows on a hill as a ghostly warning to passing travellers. To celebrate the discovery, “Gibbet Hill” has been captured in a book that features cover art and illustrations inspired by the story by respected Irish artist Paul McKinley.

“It’s quite surreal now to be standing next to a picture inspired by three of the characters in the story,” said Cleary. “When Brian sent me the ‘Gibbet Hill’ there was so much I could work with,” said McKinley.

His eery, sometimes sinister illustrations include a “juicy, wet, oily pai­n­ting” of worms inspired by a young cha­ra­cter in the story who has a bunch of earthworms in his hands. “Making new images for an old story that has been buried for so long” was a “fascinating challenge” said the artist.

Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2024