Bram Stoker dedicated Dracula to the writer Hall Caine under the nickname “Hommy-Beg.”
The dedication reads “To my dear friend Hommy Beg,” an affectionate form associated with Caine. Hall Caine was a successful novelist and playwright, and he and Stoker were close friends in London literary and theatrical circles. Caine's career included popular novels such as The Manxman, and he was also connected with the theatre world that shaped Stoker's professional life.
The dedication is easy to misread because Henry Irving was Stoker's employer and one of his closest professional associates. Irving helped define Stoker's working world at the Lyceum Theatre, but he was not the person named in the dedication. Nor was it Arthur Conan Doyle or Oscar Wilde. Caine later wrote about Stoker after his death, helping preserve evidence of their friendship. The nickname gives the dedication a personal tone that differs sharply from the ominous atmosphere of the novel itself.