Count Dracula

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Fictional vampire in a book of that name by Irish author Bram Stoker (1847-1912). The Count Dracula character has become an archetype for scores of books, films, and plays on the vampire theme since first appearing in Stoker's version of May 1897.

Stoker's character was supposedly based in part on the real-life Prince Dracula (Vlad V) in fifteenth-century Wallachia, but the historical original was reportedly a sadist rather than a vampire. According to legend, during his rule one of his punishments was to impale his victims on stakes and gloat over their sufferings. Stoker wedded the image of the literary vampire developed in the stories of John Polidori and Sheridan Le Fanu with information about the medieval Romanian ruler.

Stoker possibly became aware of the real Dracula through conversations with the Hungarian scholar Arminius Vambéry and supplemented his stories with research in Whitby, York-shire, and at the British Museum Library, London. There is thus considerable authenticity in much of the background detail of Stoker's book, including vampire folklore and actual locations in Transylvania (now Romania).

Dracula was first performed as a play on May 18, 1897, at the Lyceum Theatre, London (where Stoker was manager to the actor Henry Irving), but this first production was an adapted reading for copyright purposes, lasting four hours.

In 1923 permission for a dramatization of Dracula was given by Stoker's widow to Irish actor Hamilton Deane, and this version was first produced in June 1924 at the Grand Theatre, Derby, opening in London at the Little Theatre, John Street, Adelphi, February 14, 1924.

It is believed that the first screen versions were a Russian and then a Hungarian silent film, but copies of neither have survived. However, the 1922 German film, Nosferatu, oder Eine Symphonie des Grauens (a slightly disguised Dracula made by the famous silent film director F. W. Murnau), did survive in spite of Florence Stoker's attempt to squelch it. The role of the vampire was played by Max Schreck and the film achieved a doom-laden atmosphere, chiefly through the photography of cameraman Fritz Arno Wagner. After Florence Stoker's successful prosecution for infringement of copyright, the production company went into bankruptcy, but some prints survived and have been made available for public showings.

The Movies

The first official Dracula movie was made in Hollywood in 1930, directed by Tod Browning and starring Bela Lugosi in the title role. Lugosi became the most famous Dracula, appearing in many plays and films in this role. In 1972 a California court upheld the copyright of the heirs of Bela Lugosi in his own characterization of the part of Dracula. Over the years, the Dracula vampire theme has proliferated in movies all over the world, Christopher Lee and John Carradine playing the part most often. Dracula, the novel, has been brought to the screen more than a dozen times, and several hundred movies have featured the main character. In 1992, film director Francis Ford Coppola released his version of the classic entitled Bram Stroker's Dracula, with Gary Oldman in the title role supported by Anthony Hopkins and Winona Ryder. The film won Academy Awards for best costume design, makeup, sound effects, and editing.

In March 1968 the magazine Fate published an interview with Count Alexander Cepesi, who claimed to be a descendant of Vlad Dracula. Cepesi was a Romanian, living in Istanbul since 1947. He operated a blood bank and collected plasma for Turkish hospitals.

The traditional tomb of Dracula is in a monastery at Snagov, Romania. It was opened in 1931 but was found to contain only animal bones. A second grave in the same church contained a casket with a skeleton in a purple shroud embroidered with gold. However, the Weird Museum in Hollywood, California, exhibited what is claimed to be the authentic skeleton of Vlad Dracula, believed to have been removed from Bucharest.

In Britain, the Dracula Society exists to promote the study and appreciation of the work of Bram Stoker and Gothic themes in literature, theater, and film. In the Republic of Ireland, a Bram Stoker Society was formed with similar aims and fraternal association with the British Dracula Society. In the United States both the Count Dracula Fan Club and the Count Dracula Society carry on the appreciation of Dracula and his vampire cousins. Most recently, the Transylvanian Society of Dracula, headquartered in Bucharest, has brought together a worldwide network of Dracula enthusiasts.

The modern revival of interest in the undead vampire of Bram Stoker's famous novel has continued to grow through the twentieth century but has increased since the 1972 publication of a biography of the real Dracula by historians Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu. In May 1977, during ceremonies held in Bucharest to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Romanian independence, President Nicolae Ceausescu solemnly honored fifteenth-century warrior-prince Vlad Dracula (proto-type of Stoker's thriller) by inclusion in the nation's Hall of Fame. Prince Vlad is a tourist attraction in Romania for hundreds of foreign visitors who join the tours of sites related to both Prince Vlad and the novel's Transylvanian count. The real Dracula, Vlad Tepes or "Vlad the Impaler," killed his enemies by impaling them on sharply pointed wooden stakes. This is an inversion of the traditional method of setting a vampire to rest, as told in Dracula.

Vlad the Impaler was captured by Turks in 1476, and after decapitation his head was exhibited in Constantinople, on a stake. His status as a national hero stems from his opposition to the Turks and "love for the fatherland" as an authoritarian.

The centennial of the novel Dracula was celebrated in 1997 and Vlad Tepes is still a well-known historical figure to contemporary audiences, while the literary Dracula has become an immediately recognizable figure in popular culture. The image of Dracula regularly appears on products from greeting cards to mass media advertisements. Dracula books, comic books, movies, jewelry, dramas, candy, and toys appeal to an ever increasing audience.

Sources:

Bisang, Robert Eighteen-Bisang. Dracula: A Century of Editions, Adaptations and Translations. Part One: English Language Edition. Santa Barbara: Transylvanian Society of Dracula, 1978.

Florescu, Radu & Raymond T. McNally. Dracula: A Biography of Vlad the Impaler 1391-1476. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1973.

Glut, Donald. The Dracula Book. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1975.

McNally, Raymond T. & Radu Florescu. In Search of Dracula: A True History of Dracula and Vampire Legends. New York: New York Graphic Society, 1972.

Melton, J. Gordon. The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead. Detroit: Gale Research, 1994.

Miller, Elizabeth. Dracula: Sense and Nonsense. Westcliff-on-Sea, UK: Desert Island Books, 1998.

——. Reflection on Dracula: Ten Essays, White Rock, BC: Transylvanian Press, 1997.

Shepard, Leslie, and Albert Powers, eds. Dracula: Celebrating 100 Years. Dublin, Ireland: Mentor Press, 1997.

Summers, Montague. The Vampire: His Kith and Kin. Reprint, London: Routledge, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1928. Re-print, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1960.

——. The Vampire in Europe. London: Routledge, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1929. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1966.

Wolf, Leonard. The Annotated Dracula. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1975.

IN BRIEF: n. - Fictional vampire in a gothic horror novel by Bram Stoker; Comprises tropical American species usually placed in genus Masdevallia: diminutive plants having bizarre and often sinister-looking flowers with pendulous scapes and motile lips.

Dracula, the title character in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, set the image of the "vampire" in the popular culture of the twentieth century. Stoker took the rather vague and contradictory picture of the vampire that had emerged from the nineteenth-century literature and earlier times and developed a fascinating, satisfying, and powerful character whose vampiric life assumed mythic status in popular culture.

The Emergence of Dracula: Dracula appeared in print in the very first chapter of Stoker's novel. The reader, however, did not learn until later in the text that the driver who met Jonathan Harker at Borgo Pass and took him to Castle Dracula was none other than Dracula himself. Harker's diary did note that the driver possessed great strength , a "grip of steel."

The second chapter opened with Harker entering the castle after his long journey and finally meeting Dracula. He later recorded his impressions in his diary, writing that Dracula was "a tall man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere." (It will be noted that this description varies greatly from the common image of Dracula in formal evening dress, an image fostered by Bela Lugosi in the American play and the Dracula (1931) movie.) In excellent English, but with a strange intonation, he spoke one of his most famous lines, "Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will!" After Harker stepped inside, Dracula moved to shake hands. Harker noted that his host had "a strength which made me wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it seemed as cold as ice-more like the hand of a dead than a living man."

Over supper Harker had a chance to study Dracula with some leisure and was able to develop a more complete description:

His face was a strong-a very strong-aquiline with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples, but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale and the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm through thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.

Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine; but seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather coarse-broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs at the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal. The Count, evidently noticing it, drew back; and with a grim sort of smile, which showed more than he had yet done his protuberant teeth, set himself down again on his own side of the fireplace. We were both silent for a while; and as I looked towards the window I saw the first dim streak of the coming dawn. There seemed a strange stillness over everything ....

Harker's first encounter with Dracula included what would become basic elements of the vampire's image. He had unusual strength. He had a set of fangs (extended canine teeth). His skin was very pale, and his body was cold to the touch. He had a noticeable case of bad breath. Among the elements that were soon forgotten were the hairy palms of his hands and his sharp fingernails Only in the 1970s did the need for the sharp fingernails return, as movie directors added the scene from the book in which Dracula used his nails to cut his skin so the heroine, Mina Murray could drink his blood.

An encounter between Dracula and Harker the next day began with Harker noticing the lack of mirrors in the castle. Again Dracula's long teeth were evident, but more importantly, Harker noted: ... I had hung my shaving glass by the window, and was just beginning to shave... This time there could be no error, for the man was close to me, and I could see him over my shoulder. But there was no reflection of him in the mirror!... but at that instant I saw that the cut had bled a little, and the blood was trickling over my chin. I laid down the razor, turning as I did so half-round to look for some sticking plaster. When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demonic fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat. I drew away, and his hand touched the string of beads which held the crucifix. It made an instant change in him, for the fury passed so quickly that I could hardly believe that it was ever there.

Slowly, Dracula's unusual nature became a matter of grave concern, not just a series of foreign eccentricities. Harker dutifully noted that "... I have yet to see the Count eat or drink ...." And in light of the bizarre situation in which he had been entrapped, he wondered, "... How was it that all the people at Bistritz and on the coach had some terrible fear for me? What meant the giving of the crucifix, of the garlic of the wild rose, of the mountain ash? Bless that good, good woman who hung the crucifix round my neck ...."

The next day Harker began to gain some perspective on Dracula. He asked him about Transylvania's history, and Dracula responded with a spirited discourse. Dracula resided in the mountainous borderland of Transylvania, an area that centuries earlier had been turned over to the Szekelys tribes known for their fierceness and effectiveness in warfare. Their role was to protect Hungarian territory from invasion. Dracula spoke as a boyar, a feudal lord and member of Hungarian royalty, "We Szekelys have a right to be proud, for in our veins flows the blood of many brave races who fought as the lion fights, for Lordship."

In chapter three, during his encounter with the three women who lived in the castle, Harker noted other revealing facts about Dracula. While his cheeks were red with rage, his eyes were blue, but as his rage grew, his eyes also became red with the flames of hell behind them.

The Fictional Dracula and the Historical Dracula: In chapter three, Dracula also spoke the line that first suggested a tie between him and Vlad the Impaler the original historical Dracula: ... who was it but one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground! This was a Dracula indeed. Who was it that his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them! Was it not this Dracula, indeed, who inspired that other of his race who in a later age again and again brought his forces over the great river into Turkeyland; who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, and again, though he had come alone from the bloody field where his troops had been slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph ....

Later, in chapter 18, Abraham Van Helsing would elaborate on Dracula as Vlad the Impaler, though Vlad was never mentioned by name.

Stoker, it seems, constructed his leading character, at least in part, from the historical Dracula. That Dracula was a prince not of Transylvania, but of the neighboring kingdom of Wallachia. Stoker turned the Wallachian prince into a Transylvanian count. The real Dracula's exploits largely occurred south of the Carpathian Mountains, which divided Wallachia and Transylvania, and he only infrequently ventured into Transylvanian lands. The real Dracula was a Romanian, not a Szekely, though given the location chosen by Stoker for Castle Dracula in Szekely, he was correct to think of his main character as a Szekely.

Stoker drew the reader's attention, however, not to Dracula's history, but to the way in which each encounter with Dracula's increasingly weird behavior shattered Harker's conventional understanding of the world. The most mind-boggling event occurred as Harker peered out of the window of his room and observed Dracula outside on the castle wall: ... I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over that dreadful abyss, face down, with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings ....

As he focused on the count's strange behavior, he put the fragments of his observations together: ... I have not yet seen the Count in the daylight. Can it be that he sleeps when others wake, that he may be awake whilst they sleep!

Finally, he made a definitive observation that completed the picture of Dracula as a vampire. In chapter four, he discovered Dracula in his daytime sleep

There, in one of the great boxes, of which there were fifty in all, on a pile of newly dug earth, lay the Count! He was either dead or asleep, but I could not say which-for the eyes were open and stony, but without the glassiness of death-and the cheeks had the warmth of life through all their pallor, and the lips were as red as ever. But there was no sign of movement, no pulse, no breath, no beating of the heart. I bent over him, and tried to find any sign of life, but in vain.

... There lay the Count, but looking as if his youth had been half-renewed, for the white hair and moustache were changed to dark iron-grey; the cheeks were fuller, and the white skin seemed ruby-red underneath; the mouth was redder than ever, for on the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth and ran over the chin and neck. Even the deep, burning eyes seemed set amongst swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches underneath were bloated. It seemed as if the whole awful creature were simply gorged with blood; he lay like a filthy leech, exhausted in his repletion.

Dracula in England: At the end of the fourth chapter, the storyline of Dracula reverted to England, to where the count was en route. Dracula's intention was to move to London and reestablish himself, though to what end was not yet revealed. Leaving Harker to his fate in the castle, and carrying with him 50 boxes of his native soil, Dracula traveled to the Black Sea. There he secretly boarded the Demeter, the ship that would take him to his new home. Aboard the Demeter he quietly came out of his box each night and fed on the sailors. One by one the men grew weak, and as the journey continued, they died. Finally, off the shore of Whitby a town in northern England, a sudden storm called forth by Dracula blew the ship aground. Dracula transformed himself into a wolf and left the derelict ship.

The storyline then shifted to two women, Lucy Westenra and Mina Murray, and the men in their lives. Dracula made only fleeting appearances through the rest of the novel. Instead, he hovered as a vague menace, constantly disturbing the natural course of Lucy and Mina's lives and requiring a cadre of men to search out and destroy him.

Dracula attacked Lucy first. He lured her out of her apartment to a seat on the opposite side of the river, where a suicide had been memorialized. He proceeded to bite her on the neck and drink her blood. He next appeared outside her room in the form of another animal, a bat Meanwhile, having retrieved his boxes of earth from the Demeter, he had them shipped into London, where the novel's action now moved. Dracula distributed the boxes from his main home at his Carfax estate to other locations around the city.

Dracula renewed his attacks upon Lucy, who received a transfusion from her doctor John Seward after each attack. The men who assisted her, however, failed to realize that they were merely postponing her ordeal and her ultimate death and transformation into a vampire. Lucy's death and Van Helsing's demonstration of her vampiric powers welded the men into a unit to fight Dracula. Van Helsing was first able to obtain their assistance in killing Lucy with a stake garlic, and decapitation He then trained the men as vampire hunters In this process, in chapter 18, Van Helsing described Dracula and all his powers and weaknesses. A vampire commands the dead and the animals especially the "meaner things"-rats, bats, owls and foxes. He can disappear at will, reappear in many forms (especially a wolf, a bat, and as a mist) and can alter the weather Slightly changing the folk tradition, Van Helsing noted that Dracula preyed not upon the ones he loved best, but upon the ones we loved best. Dracula cast no shadow, he did not reflect in mirrors, he could see in the dark, and he could not enter anywhere without first being invited.

Dracula had grown strong through his long years of existence. However, his strength was strictly limited during the day. For example, while he could move around during the day, he could transform himself only at the moment of sunrise, high noon, and sunset. He could pass over running tide only at high or low tide. Dracula was somewhat venerable. His power was taken away by garlic, various sacred objects (the crucifix, the eucharistic wafer), and the wild rose. He could be destroyed by attacking him in his coffin with a bullet fired into the body, a stake through his body (not necessarily the heart), and decapitation. Van Helsing's (i.e., Stoker's) understanding of Dracula was derived primarily from the folklore of vampires in Transylvania/ Romania as described by Emily Gerard in her popular travel book, The Land Beyond the Forest (1885).

Soon after the session where Van Helsing trained the vampire hunters, Dracula attacked and killed R N Renfield the madman who had been trying to become Dracula's faithful servant. Then Dracula renewed his attack on Mina that had begun earlier in the book. The men broke into her bedroom and found her drinking Dracula's blood, presumedly the crucial step in someone's becoming a vampire. Those who were merely drained of blood by a vampire simply died. After driving Dracula away, Van Helsing and the men organized by him counterattacked first by sanitizing Dracula's boxes of native soil. All but one of the 50 were found, and in each a piece of the eucharist was placed. While the men were at work, in the daylight hours, Dracula suddenly appeared in his home in Picadilly but fled after a brief confrontation.

With only one box of the refreshing earth left, Dracula returned to his homeland. While he traveled by boat, Van Helsing, Mina, and the men took the train. The final chase led to Dracula's castle. Arriving first, Van Helsing sanitized the castle, including Dracula's tomb. Soon thereafter Dracula appeared, with the other men in hot pursuit. Just as sunset approached, and Dracula's powers were restored, Jonathan Harker and Quincey P. Morris killed him by simultaneously decapitating him (Harker) and plunging a bowie knife into his heart (Morris). The centuries-old Dracula crumbled to dust.

Dracula in Films, Drama, and Books: Dracula was well received by the reading public and both filmmakers and dramatists soon saw its potential. Not long after the book appeared, Stoker moved to assert his rights to any dramatic productions by staging a single public performance of Dracula in London. Then, after Freidrich Wilhelm Murnau filmed Nosferatu a slightly disguised version of Dracula, Florence Stoker asserted her ownership of the dramatic and film rights to her late husband's novel. The initial dramatic rights were sold to Hamilton Deane in 1924 and the American rights to Horace Liveright three years later. The film rights to Dracula were sold in 1930 to Universal Pictures which in the 1950s passed them to Hammer Films

Both the stage and film versions of Dracula radically altered the character's image. Deane dropped attributes of Dracula that would prevent his acceptance by middle-class British society. Thus Dracula lost his bad breath, hairy palms, and odd dress. He donned a tuxedo and an opera cape and moved into the Harkers' living room. The Universal movie had an even more influential role in reshaping the image. Bela Lugosi's portrayal in the American stage play was succeeded by others, but in the movie he reached millions who never saw the stage play, and what they saw was his suave, aristocratic European manner and pronounced Hungarian accent. He reinforced that image in subsequent films. For many, the Stoker character and Bela Lugosi's representation of him merged to create the public image of Dracula. In future portrayals of Dracula, as frequently as not, the actor who played Dracula offered his interpretation of the Lugosi/Dracula persona, rather than the character presented in Stoker's novel.

Stoker's novel was reprinted frequently in the following decades. Doubleday brought out the first American edition in 1899. After it entered the public domain, many reprints were published, along with condensed versions and adaptations for juvenile audiences. As early as 1972 a version for children, abridged by Nora Kramer, was published by Scholastic Book Services. At the same time, authors initiated efforts to create new interpretations of this highly intriguing literary figure. Prior to 1960, Dracula seems to have appeared in only one novel, in the 1928 Kasigli Voyvode ("The Impaling Vampire") by Turkish writer Ali Riga Seifi. He was the subject of several short stories, such as Ralph Milne Fraley's "Another Dracula," which appeared in the September and October 1930 issues of Weird Tales. In 1960 two new Dracula novels, Otto Frederick's Count Dracula's Canadian Affair and Dean Owen's The Brides of Dracula, were the first of more than 100 Dracula novels that would be published over the next three decades. Memorable among these are the several series of Dracula novels by Robert Lory (nine action stories), Fred Saberhagen (seven novels), and Peter Tremayne (three novels).

Following the success of the Hammer Dracula movies, the vampire movie in general, and the Dracula vampire movie in particular, made a marked comeback. Over 100 movies have featured Dracula, and many others star vampires who are only thinly veiled imitations. The first movies that attempted to bring the Dracula novel to the screen are believed to be two silent films made in Russia (1920) and in Hungary (1921), but no copies of either have survived. Following Nosferatu and the Bela Lugosi film, other versions included the Dracula (Spanish 1931) Horror of Dracula (1958), El Conde Dracula (1970), Dracula (1979) and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). Dracula has become the fictional character most often brought to the screen, with the possible exception of Sherlock Holmes

Dracula made his first television appearance in the 1960s through Bela Lugosi (who made a brief appearance as Dracula on the popular television series You Asked for It) and John Carradine who appeared in a NBC production of the play. Other television specials that attempted to dramatize the novel featured Denholm Elliott (1971), Jack Palance (1973), and Louis Jourdan (1977). A comic contemporary Count Dracula (portrayed by Al Lewis) was a regular character in the 1964-66 series The Munsters During the 1990-91 season, a more serious and sinister count appeared briefly in his own Dracula-The Series

As early as 1953, Dracula was featured in comic books in Eerie's (Avon Periodicals) adaptation of the novel. He made several appearances before vampires were banished in 1954 under the conditions of the Comics Code. During the period of banishment, Dell brought out one issue of a Dracula comic, but he mostly was limited to guest shots in humorous comics such as The Adventures of Jerry Lewis (July-August 1964), The Adventures of Bob Hope (October-November 1965), and Herbie (September 1966). Dracula did appear in several European and South American comic books, but it was not until the 1970s that he made his comeback in one of the most successful comics of the decade, The Tomb of Dracula In this version, Marvel Comics brought Dracula into the contemporary world in conflict with the descendants of his antagonists in the Stoker novel. He soon got a second Marvel series, Dracula Lives!, and made numerous appearances in different Marvel comics as a guest villain. Most recently Dracula was the subject of two comic books from Topps. These grew out of the latest attempt to bring Dracula to the screen in Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Dracula's image (as portrayed by Lugosi) has been a favorite in merchandising, from candy labels to ads selling various products. Each October before Halloween his face graces greeting cards, posters, buttons, party favors, and miscellaneous paraphernalia Many Dracula statues and dolls, in almost every medium, from the artistic to cute, have been produced.

Dracula also has been celebrated in music As early as 1957, "Dinner with Drac" (Cameo, 1957) appeared on a hit record by John Zacherle. A 1950s humor album, Dracula's Greatest Hits, had parodies of popular hit tunes that had been transformed into songs about Dracula. Dracula made a number of musical appearances through the 1960s and 1970s, primarily in comic situations, but in 1979 there emerged what would become known as the gothic subculture. That musical community was launched by the rock band Bauhaus, whose first hit was an eerie piece titled "Bela Lugosi's Dead." The gothic world found the vampire an apt symbol of the dark world they were creating, and Bela Lugosi's Dracula served as a starting point for their costumes. Vlad leader of the gothic band Dark Theater, is a Lugosi/Dracula fan who not only has adopted aspects of Lugosi's persona into his own, but also has created a shrine to Lugosi in the living room of his home.

The permeation of the culture by Dracula during the last generation led to the formation of clubs and organizations that celebrated and promoted him. These include The Count Dracula Fan Club The Count Dracula Society , The Dracula Society, and The Bram Stoker Society As the centennial of the publication of Bram Stoker's Dracula approaches, Dracula has become one of the most recognizable images in all of popular culture. His popularity has provided a base from which other popular vampire figures, such as Barnabas Collins and Lestat de Lioncourt, could evolve.

Davidson, Carol Margaret, ed. Bram Stoker's Dracula: Sucking through the Century, 1897en>1997. Toronto: Durndun Press, 1997. 432 pp.
Dresser, Norine. American Vampires: Fans, Victims, Practitioners. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1989. 255 pp.
Glut, Donald F. The Dracula Book. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1975. 388 pp.
Miller, Elizabeth. Reflections on Dracula: Ten Essays. White Rock, BC: Transylvania Press, 1997. 226 pp.
Skal, David J. Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web of Dracula from Novel to Stage to Screen. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1990. 242 pp.
Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Westminster, London: A. Constable & Co., 1897. 390 pp.

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