Google's latest doodle celebrates the 165th birthday of Bram Stoker, the Irish novelist and short story writer best known as the creator of Dracula, despite writing 19 books.

Born in Dublin in 1847, Stoker studied at Trinity College while working as a civil servant in Dublin Castle and moonlighting as a newspaper drama critic.

He moved to London in 1878 with his new wife, Florence Balcombe, and became an administrator of the Irving Company at the Lyceum theatre.

Stoker's first full-length book, written earlier in Dublin, was a piece on non-fiction entitled The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland, and was followed by novels, lectures, short stories, articles, serials and a two-volume memoir of Irving.

Dracula, his fifth novel, was published in 1897 after Stoker spent several years researching European folklore and mythological stories of vampires.

He died in London in 1912 after suffering a number of strokes. One hundred years after Stoker's death, Dracula continues to fascinate and forms the basis for a film and literary industry based around vampires.

A new edition, with an introduction by the Irish writer Colm Tóibín, was published this year to mark the centenary of Stoker's death.