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A new short story by “Dracula” author Bram Stoker is being published for the first time in 134 years.
Amateur historian Brian Cleary was paging through Stoker’s works at the National Library of Ireland in Dublin, the gothic novelist’s hometown, when he made the discovery.
“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,” Cleary told Agence France-Presse. “And I was just astounded, flabbergasted.”
He continued, “I sat looking at the screen wondering, am I the only living person who had read it?”
Cleary’s next thought: “What on earth do I do with it?”
Stoker biographer Paul Murray confirmed the astonishing find, noting that the work would surely. have been a “station on his route to publishing ‘Dracula’,” which he began writing in 1890, the same year he published the since-forgotten short story as well as his first novel, romantic thriller “The Snake’s Pass.”
The news comes ahead of the Bram Stoker Festival in Dublin later this month.
“Gibbet Hill” is set in the Surrey, UK village by the same name and follows the story of three outlaws who are tried and hung for the murder of a sailor and left at the gallows to serve as warning malfeasant travelers.
“It’s a classic Stoker story,” said Murray, “the struggle between good and evil, evil which crops up in exotic and unexplained ways.”
Cleary stumbled on the short story in 2021 amid a hiatus from his work at Dublin’s Rotunda Hospital due to sudden onset hearing loss. To pass the time, he perused old news clippings and other articles — such as the 1890 Christmas supplement of the Daily Express Dublin Edition where “Gibbet Hill” was published for the first and last time.
Library director Audrey Whitty recalled Cleary’s message to her: “I’ve found something extraordinary in your newspaper archives — you won’t believe it.”
Whitty called it “astonishing amateur detective work” — and a testament to their archival program.
“There are truly world-important discoveries waiting to be found”, she said.
Cleary’s find came full circle when he helped hatch a deal to see “Gibbet Hill” get a second pressing, courtesy of the Rotunda Foundation, the charity associated with Cleary’s employer. Book sales will go to benefit the Charlotte Stoker Fund, named for Bram’s mother who was, coincidentally, an advocate for the deaf community.