A FIRST edition copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula, inscribed by the writer to the Lord Bishop of Ripon less than two months after publication, is set to fetch up to £10,000 at auction in London next month.

The presentation copy of one of the greatest horror story ever written is inscribed: The Right Reverend The Lord Bishop of Ripon, from Bram Stoker, July 31, 1897.

The Bishop - William Boyd Carpenter (1841-1918) - was a prolific writer and also a lover of drama.

Stoker was well acquainted with the Bishop's diocese in North Yorkshire, where he wrote part of Dracula. Chapters six, seven and eight of the novel are set in Whitby.

Stoker took seven years to complete the story of the blood-sucking Transylvanian count, who swapped his remote ancestral castle to stalk the streets of gas-lit London.

The book - with original yellow dust cloth lettered in red - has been offered for sale by a private collector, at Sotheby's, on July 11. It has been given an estimate of £7,000 to £10, 000.

In April, Stoker's original 529-page manuscript copy of Dracula, locked away in a vault for most of the past century, was expected to fetch well over £1m at Christie's, in New York, but failed to find a buyer when bidding stopped at £500,000.