Long before all of the glitter and high-school melodrama, the vampire-oriented literary scene was dominated by Abraham “Bram” Stoker and his classic gothic novel Dracula. And today, Google is honoring the author with a Doodle.
Bram Stoker was born in Dublin, Ireland on November 8th, 1847. Google is celebrating Stoker’s 165th birthday with the Doodle, which is appearing on the other side of the world first, as per usual. Stoker is credited with a dozen novels and a few collections of short stories in his roughly 40-year career. Of course, most people nowadays know him for his 1897 novel Dracula, which introduced Gothic villain Count Dracula to the public. The epistolary book is responsible for much of the vampire literature and film we see today, although much of it has deviated from the portrayal in Stoker’s novel.
Stoker created the most famous Gothic villain in history, and for that is included in the Gothic fiction canon. Dracula‘s blend of romance and horror lead it to still be a widely read and studied novel, even in a culture saturated with vampire references.
Stoker died in 1912 at the age of 64.
As always, Google links today’s Doodle to a specific search term. This time it’s “Bram Stoker books,” which allows Google to advertise their own product. Under the book selection, regular results as well as the knowledge graph appear.
The last time Google celebrated a major author with a Doodle was in October, when they released one celebrating Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. We made the point that Google took the opportunity to make the search term “Herman Melville books” instead of “Moby Dick,” even though the actual Doodle celebrated Moby Dick specifically. Since Bram Stoker’s Doodle actually celebrates the author’s birthday, not Dracula specifically, this “books” query seems a bit more logical.