Gibbet Hill: The Rediscovered Short Story

by Bram Stoker

Originally published in the Dublin Daily Express in December 1890 and found again in the National Library of Ireland, Gibbet Hill tells the story of a hiker who encounters three mysterious children near a memorial to a murdered sailor.
In the paragraphs that follow, Bram Stoker weaves what is known as a “classic Stoker story” that highlights the struggle between good and evil with a touch of the supernatural.
This extraordinary find by an amateur historian has ignited much excitement among literary scholars and Stoker fans. It’s a story that has been lost for over a century!

17 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 21, 2024

About the author

Irish-born Abraham Stoker, known as Bram, of Britain wrote the gothic horror novel Dracula (1897).

The feminist Charlotte Mathilda Blake Thornely Stoker at 15 Marino crescent, then as now called "the crescent," in Fairview, a coastal suburb of Dublin, Ireland, bore this third of seven children. The parents, members of church of Ireland, attended the parish church of Saint John the Baptist, located on Seafield road west in Clontarf with their baptized children.

Stoker, an invalid, started school at the age of seven years in 1854, when he made a complete and astounding recovery. Of this time, Stoker wrote, "I was naturally thoughtful, and the leisure of long illness gave opportunity for many thoughts which were fruitful according to their kind in later years."

After his recovery, he, a normal young man, even excelled as a university athlete at Trinity college, Dublin form 1864 to 1870 and graduated with honors in mathematics. He served as auditor of the college historical society and as president of the university philosophical society with his first paper on "Sensationalism in Fiction and Society."

In 1876, while employed as a civil servant in Dublin, Stoker wrote a non-fiction book (The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland, published 1879) and theatre reviews for The Dublin Mail, a newspaper partly owned by fellow horror writer J. Sheridan Le Fanu. His interest in theatre led to a lifelong friendship with the English actor Henry Irving. He also wrote stories, and in 1872 "The Crystal Cup" was published by the London Society, followed by "The Chain of Destiny" in four parts in The Shamrock.

In 1878 Stoker married Florence Balcombe, a celebrated beauty whose former suitor was Oscar Wilde. The couple moved to London, where Stoker became business manager (at first as acting-manager) of Irving's Lyceum Theatre, a post he held for 27 years. The collaboration with Irving was very important for Stoker and through him he became involved in London's high society, where he met, among other notables, James McNeil Whistler, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the course of Irving's tours, Stoker got the chance to travel around the world.

The Stokers had one son, Irving Noel, who was born on December 31, 1879.

People cremated the body of Bram Stoker and placed his ashes placed in a display urn at Golders green crematorium. After death of Irving Noel Stoker in 1961, people added his ashes to that urn. Despite the original plan to keep ashes of his parents together, after death, people scattered ashes of Florence Stoker at the gardens of rest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_Stoker

Reviews

[Mark Tallen · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 * Despite my 2 star rating, I actually rate it 2.5 out of 5. It is a strange short story that has some effective chills within its short page count. It is well written enough and worth the effort to read, especially in the month of October.

[Alvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moraleja del relato: Bombardeen los niños

[Fishface · Rating 3 out of 5]

An odd find that I knew I had to read

This forgotten story by Bram Stoker is about what I might have expected of him...mysterious and odd. A good read!

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very short story, with lush and atmospheric descriptions, but centered around a nonsensical event.

Evocative, but if not for the prominence of the author surely unpublishable.

Summary:

A man walks through nature to a park or green space.

He meets three children who act and speak spookily.

In the park he falls asleep, and then awakes and from his hidden resting place seems the kids do some kind of magic ritual involving snake charming and some kind of fortune telling.

Later he is ambushed, blindfolded, gagged, and tied up by - surprise surprise the kids. They dance around with a dagger menacing him and he falls asleep.

He is awakened by other park goers, who affirm they saw the three kids. It is implied that the kids somehow stole the narrators heart and replaced it with a snake, but that doesn’t make much sense as the protagonist would not be alive to converse with the other oarkgoers. The story ends unresolved.