Bram Stoker

Stoker knew Wilde’s parents, and married a woman Wilde had courted. He met Doyle, Shaw and Tennyson when he moved to London; he attended Doyle’s wedding, stayed with him and had a letter from him praising ‘Dracula’ when it was published. Whitman had been one of his heroes; they exchanged letters until Whitman’s death — speculation has been aroused by one in which Whitman relays his physical measurements — and met a few times, when Stoker was in America with Irving’s theatre-company (it is untrue that Stoker crossed the Atlantic just to see him). Twain was another American friend.