Bram Stoker's original manuscript copy of Dracula, arguably the greatest horror story written, is set to fetch more than €1.6 million (£1 million sterling) after being hidden for most of the last century.
The long-lost 529-page script - with a different ending as well as extensive scrawled revisions and deletions by Stoker - bears the Irish-born author's hand-lettered titled page, The Un-Dead.
Last night Mr Seán Lennon, librarian at Marino public library in Dublin, expressed surprise at the existence of the manuscript. He and other staff at Marino library were instrumental in establishing the successful Bram Stoker Summer School, which has taken place in Dublin this past 10 years.
He was aware of rumours of alternative endings to the novel, as confirmed by the manuscript.
Dracula was the only one of Stoker's novels which showed signs of research, he said, "unlike most of his writing". It was "an inspired piece of work which zips along at a fair old pace" while the other novels were "heavy going with all the excesses of the Gothic genre".
Just days before publication of Dracula in 1897, the book title was simplified to the memorable name of its main character, the blood-sucking Transylvanian count who swapped his remote castle to stalk the streets of gas-lit London.
The unique copy of the book, which took seven years to complete, reveals that Stoker altered the order of some chapters and some pages within chapters, often adding necessary connecting text in ink. He also deleted 102 pages in late stages of editing.
The heavily amended typescript also contains an ending never seen by generations of readers - a graphic description of the destruction of Castle Dracula. The scene was deleted from the final version, possibly because the author or publishers were considering a sequel in which the count returns from the grave to stalk new victims.
The first edition Dracula had a print run of 3,000 copies priced at 6/- (30p sterling) each, with Stoker receiving a royalty of 1/6 (7.5p) for each copy after the first 1,000 were sold. The book became a fantastic success. It has been translated into 44 languages, millions of copies have been produced as well as innumerable published studies of the work, and Dracula has become the most filmed character after Sherlock Holmes.
The emergence of the manuscript is sure to cause a huge stir among the thousands of Dracula fanatics around the world. Christie's in New York has given it an estimate of up to $1,500,000 when it goes under the hammer on April 17th. Francis Wahlgren, head of the book department at Christie's, however, believes it could fetch perhaps $2 million.
Every page shows signs of revision, providing proof that complex last-minute rearrangements were made. The script also reveals that he remained undecided about the names of many of the book's minor characters until the last minute.
The whereabouts of the script remained a mystery until 1980 when it turned up in New England. Four years later it was bought by the current owner, an American collector of 19th-century literature.
Abraham (Bram) Stoker was born in Dublin in 1847 into a middle-class Protestant family. Crippled as a child, he was educated at Trinity College Dublin and was accepted into Dublin high society, attending receptions at the home of Sir William and Lady Wilde, Oscar Wilde's parents.
After a spell as unpaid drama critic for the Dublin Evening Mail, he married Florence Balcombe. They moved to London in 1877 to become Sir Henry Irving's acting manager at the Lyceum Theatre from 1878-1905.
He began writing Dracula in 1890phia.