Bram Stoker's Dracula

Stories of blood-sucking monsters are universal and have been around for centuries. There's the Greek lamiae, the Chinese jiangshi, and the African asanbosam to name a few. But let's focus on the one who has outlived them all, whose monstrous legend lives among us even today — Count Dracula.

The stories of blood-sucking monsters constantly shift to reflect the culture and issues of their time. For instance, there are real-life diseases with symptoms similar to the traits found in some vampires: sensitivity to light, a sudden decline in health, even the desire to bite other people. So, before we understood concepts like viruses and germs, creating a fictional explanation makes a lot of sense.

Also, if you look at the sharp teeth and long fingernails of the typical western vampire, and how they use these to attack their prey, the vampire becomes a metaphor for a human's capacity for great violence. Vampires often appear humanoid and primarily attack humans, so associating their violent attacks with the violence we see in the real world is easy — because both predator and prey look like us.

We can find this monster in folklore, legends, and literature long before the word "vampire" appears for the first time in English around 1730. However, it wasn't until the Irish author Abraham 'Bram' Stoker wrote his 1897 novel Dracula that the characteristics of this creature became widely recognizable in the modern world.

Stoker actually started outlining the novel in 1890, years before he even encountered the name 'Dracula.' We know this because he wrote notes — a lot of notes. Emily Gerard's book of Transylvanian superstitions The Land Beyond the Forest and Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould's The Book of Were-Wolves were two books which clearly inspired him. He clipped newspaper articles, recorded tombstone inscriptions, and transcribed ship captains' logbooks to make his narrative more realistic. He was also influenced by Victorian theatre, including his friend and employer — the actor Henry Irving.

It is most likely that he read the name "Dracula" for the first time in William Wilkinson's book An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia while on vacation with his family, after he had already started writing the story.

In tradition with a lot of Gothic literature, Dracula is a member of the aristocracy, which also explains the dramatic castle setting and the Count's great wealth of "old gold." In his memos, Stoker combined many existing literary and folklore traits that we now see as typical vampire characteristics: no reflection in mirrors, never eats or drinks, has enormous strength, and the ability to see in the dark. It was already accepted that vampires could turn others into the undead, have large canine teeth and pointed nails, and be vulnerable to garlic and wooden stakes. But Count Dracula was the first vampire to have all of these traits.

And influenced by werewolf legends, Stoker gives Dracula the ability to shapeshift into a bat, a wolf, or mist — a first for vampires! Seven years of making vampire notes paid off, and when the book was finally published, it was a critical and popular success.