The ghostly story tells the tale of a sailor murdered by three criminals whose bodies were strung up on a hanging gallows as a warning to passing travellers.
It is set in Gibbet Hill in Surrey, a location also referenced in Charles Dickens’ 1839 novel Nicholas Nickleby.
Mr Cleary made the discovery after taking time off work following a sudden onset of hearing loss in 2021 – during which period he would pass the time at the national library in Stoker’s native Dublin.
In October 2023, the Stoker fan came across an unfamiliar title in an 1890 Christmas supplement of the Daily Express Dublin Edition.
Mr Clearly told the AFP news agency: “I read the words Gibbet Hill and I knew that wasn’t a Bram Stoker story that I had ever heard of in any of the biographies or bibliographies.”
“And I was just astounded, flabbergasted.
“I sat looking at the screen wondering, am I the only living person who had read it?”
He said of the moment he made the discovery: “What on earth do I do with it?”
The library’s director Audrey Whitty said Mr Cleary called her and said: “I’ve found something extraordinary in your newspaper archives – you won’t believe it.”
She added that his “astonishing amateur detective work” was a testament to the library’s archives.
“There are truly world-important discoveries waiting to be found”, she said.
