Filing for Divorce

Count Dracula vs Vlad Tepes

1


[from Dracula: The Shade and the Shadow, ed. Elizabeth Miller
(Westcliff-on-Sea: Desert Island Books, 1998]

In Chapter 18 of Dracula, Van Helsing says this of the Count:
He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won
his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very
frontier of Turkey-land (291). Very little attention was paid to
the possible connection between the fictional Count and his
historical namesake until 1972 when Radu Florescu and
Raymond T. McNallys In Search of Dracula revealed to the
world the story of the real Dracula Vlad Tepes. This was
closely followed by McNallys fortuitous discovery that the
Rosenbach Museum in Philadelphia had acquired Stokers
working papers for Dracula, which prove conclusively that he
did know about the existence of the Voivode Dracula.
Dracula studies have not been the same since. Using the initial
findings of Florescu and McNally (some of which the two
historians have since revised), many enthusiasts have
championed tenuous connections between Count Dracula and
Vlad, to the point where it has become increasingly difficult to
separate fact from hypothesis.
It has become commonplace to assume that Stoker was
inspired by accounts of the Impalers atrocities and deliberately
modelled his Dracula on the life and character of Vlad. This has
resulted in some fanciful and at times ludicrous statements:
that Dracula was the reshaping of four centuries of folk
legends that had accreted around the historical Walachian
warlord Prince Vlad Tepes (Dziemianowicz 11); that much of
the story of Count Dracula was drawn from the ghastly
doings of the Hungarian Prince Vlad who was a remote
ancestor of Attila the Hun (Mascetti 274); that the historical
Draculas abandonment of his Orthodox faith resulted in his
becoming subject to punishment by Orthodox priests who
publicly laid the curse of vampirism on him (Hillyer 17); that
the city of Bucharest was first mentioned in a document dated
1459 and signed Vlad Tepes (Count Dracula); and that the
first reported vampires were real historical figures
Elizabeth of Bathory and Vlad the Impaler (Brownworth and
Redding ix). It is time to put such claims to rest.
2

Investigations into possible connections between the Count
and the Voivode began before the publication of In Search of
Dracula. In 1958, Bacil Kirtley stated that Unquestionably the
historical past that Van Helsing assigns the fictional vampire
Dracula is that of Vlad Tsepesh, Voivod of Wallachia (14). In
1962, Stokers first biographer, Harry Ludlam, asserted that
Stoker had discovered that the Voivode Drakula or Dracula
had earned for himself the title of the Impaler, and that the
story of his ferocity and hair-raising cruelty in defiance of the
Turks was related at length in two fifteenth-century
manuscripts, one of which spoke of him as wampyr (113). In
1966, Grigore Nandris connected the vampire Dracula with the
historical figure, even claiming that available portraits of Vlad
were adapted by Bram Stoker to suit his literary purposes
(375). Building on these obscure references to a possible
connection, Florescu and McNally embarked on a quest of their
own, the results of which were published in In Search of Dracula
(1972, rev. 1994). While their historical research was thorough
and well documented, the two authors speculated that the
author of Dracula knew quite a bit about the historical figure,
and that his sources included Arminius Vambry (a Hungarian
professor whom he met on at least two occasions) and various
readings found at the British Museum. But is this the case?
Exactly what is the connection between the Count and the
Voivode? For the answer, we must go to two sources, the
reliability of which cannot be questioned: Stokers Notes at the
Rosenbach Museum, and the novel itself.
We know from Stokers Notes that by March 1890, he had
decided to write a vampire novel; in fact, he had already
selected a name for his vampire Count Wampyr. We are also

certain that Stoker found the name Dracula (most likely
for the first time) in a book that he borrowed from the Whitby
Public Library in the summer of 1890, An Account of the
Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia (1820) by William
Wilkinson. Stoker not only recorded the call number of the
book but copied almost verbatim key passages. This is what
Wilkinson wrote:

Wallachia continued to pay it [tribute] until the year
1444; when Ladislas King of Hungary, preparing to make
war against the Turks, engaged the Voivode Dracula to
form an alliance with him. The Hungarian troops
marched through the principality and were joined by
four thousand Wallachians under the command of
Draculas son. (17)

And later,

Their Voivode, also named Dracula, did not remain
satisfied with mere prudent measures of defence: with an
army he crossed the Danube and attacked the few
Turkish troops that were stationed in his neighbourhood;
but this attempt, like those of his predecessors, was only
attended with momentary success. Mahomet, having
turned his arms against him, drove him back to
Wallachia, whither he pursued and defeated him. The
Voivode escaped into Hungary, and the Sultan caused
his brother Bladus to be named in his place. (19)

The name Dracula appears just three times, two of which
more accurately refer to the father (Vlad Dracul). What
attracted Stoker was a footnote attached to the third occurrence:
Dracula in the Wallachian language means Devil. The
Wallachians were, at that time, as they are at present, used to
give this as a surname to any person who rendered himself
conspicuous either by courage, cruel actions, or cunning (19).
That Stoker considered this important is evident in that he
copied into his own notes DRACULA in Wallachian language
means DEVIL. The three references to Dracula in
Wilkinsons text, along with the footnote, are the only
occurrences of the name in all of the sources that we know that
Stoker consulted.
3

Stokers debt to Wilkinson is generally acknowledged, but a
number of points are often overlooked: Wilkinson refers only to
Dracula and Vovode, never Vlad, never Vlad Tepes
or the Impaler; furthermore there are no specific references to
his atrocities.
4
It is no mere co-incidence that the same paucity
of information applies to the text of Dracula. Yet the popular
theory is that Stoker knew much more than what he read in
Wilkinson; that his major sources were the Hungarian
professor Arminius Vambry, and readings in the British
Museum.
In Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving (1906), Stoker gives
a brief account of two meetings with Vambry (238). There is
nothing to indicate that the topic of Dracula ever came up.
Stoker does tell us, however, that Henry Irving was present at
the first meeting, a meal that followed a performance of the
play The Dead Heart. Is it not more likely that the dinner
conversation focused on the play, and (considering Irvings
overpowering personality) on his performance? As the account
of this dinner was written several years after the publication of
Dracula, one would expect Stoker to have mentioned Vambrys
role (assuming he had one). Stoker notes that the Hungarian
was full of experiences [about a trip to Central Asia]
fascinating to hear (238). Surely a discussion about the
atrocities of Vlad the Impaler would have been as fascinating,
had it occurred? Also significant is that this meeting took place
in April 1890, before Stoker went to Whitby and read
Wilkinsons book. As for the second encounter, Stoker provides
even less information. We saw him again two years later,
records Stoker, when he was being given a Degree at the
Tercentenary of Dublin University. He soared above all the
speakers, making one of the finest speeches I have ever head
[sic] (Reminiscences 238). The only comment about the subject
matter of the talk was that Vambry spoke loudly against
Russian aggression (238). Nothing about Dracula. But by this
time, Stokers novel was well underway, and he was already
using the name Dracula for his vampire.
The conviction that Stoker gleaned information from the
Hungarian seems to be the residue of theories about Stokers

sources before the discovery of his Notes. As early as 1962,
Ludlam was making the claim that Bram sought the help of
Arminius Vambry in Budapest and that Vambry was able
to report that the Impaler who had won this name for obvious
reasons, was spoken of for centuries after as the cleverest and
the most cunning, as well as the bravest of the sons of the land
beyond the forest (100). Florescu and McNally cemented the
connection in 1972: The two men [Stoker and Vambry] dined
together, and during the course of their conversation, Bram was
impressed by the professors stories about Dracula the
impaler. After Vambry returned to Budapest, Bram wrote to
him, requesting more details about the notorious 15th century
prince and the land he lived in (Search 115).
5
The only fact we
have is that they dined together! Stoker makes no reference to
Vambry in his working papers. No documented evidence
exists that Vambry gave Stoker any information about Vlad, or
for that matter, about vampires. Yet we keep encountering
statements to the contrary.
6

Supporters of the Stoker-Vambry link also go to the novel
for textual evidence, claiming that what Vambry told Stoker is
revealed through what Arminius, Van Helsings friend, tells
Van Helsing. Van Helsing, the argument goes, is Stokers alter-
ego, and the insertion of Arminius is the authors tribute to
Vambry, or, as Florescu and McNally speculate, Stokers way
of acknowledging his debt and showing what information
and conclusions the professor had passed on to Stoker (Search,
1972, 116). But surely the mere inclusion of the name proves no
such thing. After all, Dracula contains many names drawn from
its authors friends and acquaintances. The name Harker, for
example, most likely came from one of the workers at the
Lyceum, while Swales was taken from a tombstone that
Stoker noted in Whitby. Since the authority on Dracula in the
novel would need to be foreign, someone acquainted with the
Dutch professor Van Helsing, whose name was better to use
than Arminius [Vambry] whom he had briefly met (Finn 42-
3)?
But let us assume that what Arminius tells Van Helsing is an
echo of what Vambry told Stoker. What exactly does he say?

I have asked my friend Arminius, of Buda-Pesth
University, to make his record; and, from all the means
that are, he tell me of what he has been. He must, indeed,
have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name
against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier
of Turkey-land. If it be so, then was he no common man;
for in that time, and for centuries after, he was spoken of
as the cleverest and the most cunning, as well as the
bravest of the sons of the land beyond the forest The
Draculas were, says Arminius, a great and noble race,
though now and again were scions who were held by
their coevals to have had dealings with the Evil One.
They learned his secrets in the Scholomance, amongst the
mountains over Lake Hermanstadt, where the devil
claims the tenth scholar as his due. In the records are
such words as stregoica witch, ordog, and pokol
Satan and hell; and in one manuscript this very Dracula
is spoken of as wampyr, which we all understand too
well. (291)

All of the vital information in this can be traced to Stokers own
notes and sources: Wilkinson, as we have seen, writes about
Dracula and the Turks, as well as the Voivodes courage and
cunning; the land beyond the forest was the heading of a
chapter in Charles Boners book on Transylvania (one of
Stokers known sources) as well as the title for a book by Emily
Gerard, whose article Transylvanian Superstitions we know
that Stoker read; the information about the Scholomance comes
almost verbatim from Gerards article; the terms stregoica,
ordog and pokol are listed in Stokers notes as having come
from Magyarland (1881); and wampyr was the name that
Stoker originally intended to give his Count. Nothing remains
to have come from Vambry.
Arminius makes a second appearance in the text as Van
Helsing reports on Dracula to the band of vampire hunters: As
I learned from the researches of my friend Arminius of Buda-
Pesth, he was in life a most wonderful man (360).
7
While he
goes on to comment on his mighty brain, a learning beyond
compare, and a heart that knew no fear and no remorse,
Arminius says nothing about his reputation as the Impaler,

certainly his most memorable characteristic. While the
inclusion of the name of Arminius can be seen as Stokers
tribute to Vambry, there is no evidence that the Hungarian
provided Stoker with any information about Dracula.
But what about the manuscript in which this very
Dracula is spoken of as wampyr? Some scholars have posited
the theory that Stoker actually did see such a manuscript.
During his extensive research at the British Museum, writes
Donald Glut, Stoker uncovered writings pertaining to Vlad the
Impaler (55). Andrew Mackenzie goes further, declaring that
if the historical Dracula had not been presented as such a
horrific figure Bram Stoker would never have selected him
from the archives of the British Museum as the character who,
transformed by his imagination, was to become a symbol of
terror (55). No doubt Stoker did do some research at the
British Museum, but there is not a shred of evidence that he did
any of it on the historical Dracula. Now, he could have. The
material was certainly there. Christopher Frayling lists what
would have been available at the time: included is one of the
German printed pamphlets about Vlad Tepes published in
Bamberg in 1491 with a woodcut. Could this be the mysterious
document to which Arminius alludes? Frayling goes so far as to
suggest that this is an authentic model for Dracula and that
Stoker must have seen the pamphlet or a reproduction of it
(421).
8
This is, of course, speculation. Yet for many, it has
become fact: Paul Dukes, for example, refers to the woodcut of
Vlad the Impaler found by Bram Stoker in his researches in
the British Museum in 1890 (45). The caption accompanying
the woodcut reads: A wondrous and frightening story about a
great bloodthirsty berserker called Dracula the voevod who
inflicted such un-Christian tortures such as with stakes and also
dragged men to death along the ground (Florescu and
McNally, Essential Dracula 59). Given the reference to a
bloodthirsty berserker, the argument goes that Stoker must
have seen this.
9
But the logic behind the argument Stoker was
at the British Museum, the Bamberg pamphlet was at the
British Museum, and therefore Stoker saw the pamphlet is
fallacious. We must treat such speculation (including that
Stoker had read Munsters Cosmographia or Richard Knolle's
Generall History of the Turks) with caution.
One result of all of this is that readers, accepting these
hypotheses as fact, begin to look to the novel for corroborating
evidence. First there is the assumption that Stoker drew his
physical description of Count Dracula from either the woodcut
portrait in the Bamberg pamphlet or from a printed account of
Vlads physical appearance. For example, in his narration for a
recent television documentary, Christopher Frayling states that
the woodcut certainly provided Stoker with the physical
description of Count Dracula. It might also be tempting to
deduce that Stoker had access to the following description of
Vlad, provided by a fifteenth-century papal legate who had met
the voivode:

He was not very tall, but very stocky and strong, with a
cold and terrible appearance, a strong aquiline nose,
swollen nostrils, a thin and reddish face in which the
very long eyelashes framed large wide-open green eyes;
the bushy black eyebrows made them appear
threatening. (qtd. in Florescu and McNally, Prince 85)

However, anyone familiar with nineteenth-century Gothic
literature knows that many of the features of Vlad described in
the legates account (such as the bushy eyebrows and the
aquiline nose) had become, by Stokers time, common
conventions in Gothic fiction. And as for Count Draculas
eyebrows almost meeting over the nose, Stoker records in his
notes that this came from Baring-Goulds The Book of Were-
wolves.
Another popular piece of speculation began as early as 1956:
that in creating Renfield, Stoker seems to have adapted the
legend about Vlads penchant for impaling mice while he was
a prisoner in Hungary (Kirtley 14). Also Nandris (1966)
connects the tradition about Vlad impaling birds saying it is
developed in Bram Stokers Dracula (391). This reappears
several years later in Farsons biography of Stoker and is
extended to Renfield:

There is a story that he [Vlad] bribed his guards into
bringing him small birds which he would mutilate and
then impale on sticks in neat rows. If true, this was

echoed by Stoker in his powerful characterisation of
the lunatic Renfield, who caught flies to feed spiders to
feed birds which he devoured himself. (128)
Equally far-fetched is the claim that Vlads fondness for
impaling his victims was Stokers inspiration for his method of
destroying the vampire the use of the wooden stake!
According to Glut, Vlads preference for impaling his victims
(a method of destroying vampires) further inflamed Stokers
imagination (56), while the travel guide Eastern Europe on a
Shoestring claims that Vlad inspired the tale of Count Dracula
by his habit of impaling his enemies on stakes (651). This
connecting of impalement to the staking of vampires is
misleading, and overlooks three facts: that Bram Stoker had
planned on writing a vampire novel before he ever came across
the name of Dracula; that there is no definitive proof that
Stoker knew anything about Vlads fondness for impalement;
and that the staking of vampires was a well-established motif
both in folklore and in earlier Gothic fiction long before
Dracula.
Another consequence of the insistence on connecting the
two Draculas is the temptation to criticize Stoker for inaccurate
history. Why, some ask, did he make Dracula a
Transylvanian Count rather than a Wallachian Voivode? Why
was his castle situated in the Borgo Pass instead of at Poenari?
Why is Count Dracula a boyar, a member of the nobility
which Vlad continuously struggled with? Why does Stoker
make Dracula a Szekely, descended from Attila the Hun,
when the real Dracula was a Wallachian of the Basarab family?
There is a very simple answer to these questions: Vlad Tepes is
Vlad Tepes, while Count Dracula is Count Dracula.
Considering the preposterous conclusions that the premises
behind such questions have generated, a closer look seems
warranted.
10

Although Stokers knowledge of the historical Dracula was
scanty, he did know that he was a voivode. His use of the title
count was in keeping with the Gothic convention of drawing
villains from the ranks of the aristocracy. A cursory glance
shows a recurrence of villainous Counts: Count Morano in The
Mysteries of Udolpho (Radcliffe), Count de Bruno in The Italian
(Radcliffe), Count Doni in Ernestus Berchtold (Polidori), Count
Cenci in The Cenci (Shelley), Count Montonio in The Fatal
Response (Maturin), Lord Byrons Count Manfred, and Wilkie
Collins Count Fosco. Vampire Counts in pre-Dracula fiction
include Count Azzo von Klatka in The Mysterious Stranger
and Countess Karnstein in Le Fanus Carmilla. The frequent
occurrence of Counts in Gothic fiction links the temporal power
of aristocrats, especially foreign aristocrats, with supernatural
powers. As for references to the Borgo Pass, the boyars and
the Szeklers, these are bits and pieces from sundry sources that
Stoker mentions in his notes.
How much did Bram Stoker know about the historical
Dracula? There is no doubt that the material was available. But
how meticulous a researcher was Stoker? We know that he read
and took notes from a number of books and articles (for a
complete list, see Leatherdale, Origins 237-9) and that some of
this material found its way into his novel almost verbatim. But
his research seems to have been haphazard (though at times
fortuitous) rather than scholarly. What he used, he used as is,
errors and confusions included. That his rendering of historical
and geographical data is fragmented and at times erroneous
can be explained by the fact that Stoker seemed content to
combine bits and pieces of information from his sources
without any concern for accuracy. After all, Stoker was writing
a Gothic novel, not a historical treatise. And he was writing
Dracula in his spare time, of which I doubt he had much. He
may very well have found more material about the historical
Dracula, had he had the time to look for it. But in the absence of
any proof to the contrary, I am not convinced that he did. There
is no conclusive evidence that he gleaned any information on
Vlad from Vambry, from material at the British Museum, or
from anywhere else except that one book he found in Whitby
by William Wilkinson.
I have other reasons for taking this position. Let us assume
for arguments sake that he did learn more from Vambry, that
he did conduct research on the historical Dracula beyond
Wilkinson. Why, then, is Count Dracula in the novel never
referred to as Vlad or the Impaler? Why are there no
references to his atrocities, which would have been grist for the
horror writers mill? Why is Van Helsing reduced to stating
that He [Dracula] was in life a most wonderful man? And

why are there no references in Stokers working notes to his
having found any other material? There are only two possible
answers: either he knew more and chose not to use it, or else he
used what he knew.
Was Stoker so sophisticated a novelist that he deliberately
suppressed material for artistic purposes? One need only
consider how greedily he gobbled up and reproduced a
significant amount of rather trivial information. Are we to
believe that he knew about Vlads bloodthirsty activities but
decided to discard such a history for his villainous Count in
favor of the meager pickings gleaned from Wilkinson? One
could argue that absence can be as important as presence: that
Stoker deliberately suppressed information in order to make
his character more mysterious; or that Draculas silence about
his past is a consequence of the fact that the text denies him a
narrative voice. Such interpretations are intriguing, but one
must bear in mind that there is a difference between
interpretation and fact.
As for the theories about the connections between the Count
and the Voivode, they are (with the exception of the link to
Wilkinson) based on circumstantial evidence, some of which is
quite flimsy. I do not dispute that in using the name Dracula
Stoker appropriated the sobriquet of the fifteenth-century
Wallachian voivode. Nor do I deny that he added bits and
pieces of obscure historical detail to flesh out a past for his
vampire. But I do vehemently challenge the widespread view
that Stoker was knowledgeable about the historical Dracula
(beyond what he read in Wilkinson) and that he based his
Count on the life and character of Vlad. While it is true that the
resurgence of interest in Dracula since the early 1970s is due in
no small measure to the theories about such connections, the
theories themselves do not withstand the test of close scrutiny.


Works Cited

Boner, Charles. Transylvania: Its People and its Products. London:
Longmans, 1865.
Brownworth, Victoria A. and Judith M. Redding.
Introduction. In Victoria A. Brownworth, ed. Night Bites:
Vampire Stories by Women. Seattle: Seal, 1996.
Dukes, Paul. Dracula: Fact, Legend and Fiction. History Today
32 (July 1982): 44-47.
Dziemianowicz, Stefan. Introduction. In Robert Weinberg,
Stefan R. Dziemianowicz and Martin H. Greenberg, eds.
Weird Vampire Tales. New York: Gramercy, 1992.
Eastern Europe on a Shoestring. Hawthorn, Australia: Lonely
Planet, 1995.
Farson, Daniel. The Man Who Wrote Dracula: A Biography of Bram
Stoker. New York: St. Martins, 1975.
Finn, Anne-Marie. Sources of a Nightmare: The Genesis of
Dracula. Unpublished diss. Memorial University of
Newfoundland, 1995.
Florescu, Radu and Raymond T. McNally. Dracula: Prince
of Many Faces. Boston: Little Brown, 1989.
,In Search of Dracula. New York: Greenwich, 1972. Rev.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994.
Florescu, Radu and Raymond T. McNally, eds. The Essential
Dracula. New York: Mayflower, 1979.
Frayling, Christopher. Nightmare: Birth of Victorian Horror.
Television documentary. BBC/A&E, 1997.
,Vampyres: Lord Byron to Count Dracula. London: Faber and
Faber, 1991.
Gerard, Emily. Transylvanian Superstitions. The Nineteenth
Century (July 1885): 128-44.
Glut, Donald. The Dracula Book. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press,
1975.
Haining, Peter, ed. The Vampire Omnibus. London: Artus, 1995.
Hillyer, Vincent. Vampires. Los Banos, CA: Loose Change, 1988.
Kirtley, Bacil. Dracula the Monastic Chronicles and Slavic
Folklore. Dracula: The Vampire and the Critics. Ed. Margaret
L. Carter. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1988. 11-17.
Leatherdale, Clive. The Origins of Dracula. Westcliff-on-Sea:
Desert Island Books, 1995
Ludlam, Harry. A Biography of Bram Stoker, Creator of Dracula.
1962. London: New English Library, 1977.
Mackenzie, Andrew. Dracula Country. London: Arthur Barker,
1977.

Mascetti, Manuela Dunn. Vampire: The Complete Guide to the
World of the Undead. New York: Viking, 1992.
Melton, J. Gordon. The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the
Undead. Detroit: Visible Ink, 1994.
Nandris, Grigore. The Historical Dracula: The Theme of his
Legend in the Western and Eastern Literatures of Europe.
Comparative Literature Studies 3.4 (1966): 367-96.
Oinas, Felix. East European Vampires & Dracula. Journal of
Popular Culture 16.1 (1982): 108-16.
Page, Carol. Bloodlust: Conversations with Real Vampires. New
York: Harper Collins, 1991.
Skal, David J. Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web of Dracula From
Novel to Stage to Screen. New York: W. W. Norton, 1990.
Stoker, Bram. Bram Stokers Original Foundation Notes and
Data for his Dracula. Rosenbach Museum & Library,
Philadelphia. MS.EL3F.5874D.
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White Rock, BC: Transylvania Press, 1994.
,Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving. 1906. London: William
Heinemann, 1907.
Varma, Devendra. The Genesis of Dracula: A Re-Visit. In
Margaret L. Carter, ed. Dracula: The Vampire and the Critics.
Ann Arbor: UMI, 1988. 39-50.
Wilkinson, William. An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia
and Moldavia. London, 1820.

Notes


1
. For an expanded version of this paper, see Chapter 1 of my
book Reflections on Dracula (White Rock, BC: Transylvania Press, 1997).
2
. Thankfully, not everyone has jumped on the Vlad-wagon.
Daniel Farson avows that Stoker seized on the name of Dracula,
together with a vague impression of the background, and that was all
(130); David Skal cautions that Stoker was inspired only to an extent
by accounts of Vlad (22); and J. Gordon Melton suggests that Vlad was
a figure upon which Stoker partially built the title character (665).
3
. It should be noted, however, that Emily Gerards Transylvanian
Superstitions (1885), which we know that Stoker read, contains three

references to the possessive Drackuluj meaning devils (131)
which may very well have reinforced for Stoker his choice of the name.
4
. While Wilkinsons footnote mentions cruel actions, there is no
indication that the reference is specifically to Vlad; furthermore, this is
given as one of three alternatives.
5
. In the 1994 revised edition of In Search of Dracula, the claim is less
definitive: The two men dined together, and during the course of
their conversation Stoker became impressed by the professors stories
about his homeland (150). Florescu and McNally also admit (in both
editions) that no correspondence between Stoker and Vambry has
been found.
6
. See, for example, Farson 124, Oinas 115, Varma 47. Perhaps the
most extreme case of creating fact from fancy is the following
contribution from Peter Haining:
On an evening in April 1890, among his [Stokers] guests was a
small, balding middle-European named Arminius Vambery There
he sat between Sir Henry and Bram Stoker and for the rest of the night
filled their heads with stories of the superstitions which abounded in
his native land. Stories of witches, werewolves and the un-dead It
was the thought of those un-dead beings that specifically excited his
[Stokers] interest He also wrote to Vambery in Budapest about his
idea and found the little Professor more than willing to elaborate on
the story he had told over dinner. (Omnibus 2)
7
. It is significant that this passage was removed from the 1901
abridged edition of Dracula, suggesting that Stoker (or his editor)
considered it dispensable.
8
. He may have taken his lead from Florescu and McNally who
suggested in 1972 that Stoker saw this pamphlet which was his cue
for transforming Dracula into a vampire (Search 116).
9
. It is much more likely, however, that Stoker noticed the word
berserker in Baring-Goulds The Book of Were-Wolves (1865), which is
on his own list of sources for Dracula.
10
. For example, according to Carol Page, Sean Manchester claims that
Stoker based his Dracula on Hunyadi, since he was a count, and Vlad


wasnt, he was in the right geographic location, and Vlad wasnt, and
so on (104).