Irish author ABRAHAM STOKER (1847-1912) worked for more than a quarter of a century as manager of the West End's Lyceum Theatre, which drew him into London's literary and artists circles; he was a friend of such luminaries as writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Stoker is also the author of The Lair of the White Worm (1911), among other books.