Abraham Stoker (1847-1912), better known by his pen name Bram Stoker, was an Irish theatre manager, writer, novelist and Freemason. He became famous as the author of Dracula (1897), an epistolary Gothic horror novel widely considered a landmark in vampire literature. The work deeply influenced future representations of fictional vampiric characters, and Stoker came to be regarded by many as "the father of vampire fiction".
The Dualitists; or, the Death Doom of the Double Born, the short horror story by Bram Stoker which we offer to our readers today, was published for the first time in November 1886 in the 1887 issue of The Theatre Annual.
Often cited as an example of one of Bram Stoker's favorite themes, male bonding, the story evokes a world of youthful adventure stories. As in much of Stoker's fiction, the driving force in this story stems from an innate male lust for violence. Two boys, Harry Merford and Tommy Santon, receive identical knives as a Christmas gift. Armed with these symbols of virility, self-control, and mastery, the boys test their weapons by "smashing" them against each other like swordsmen. The ending is horrifying.
