THROWBACK THURSDAY – Dracula, the story behind the world’s most famous vampire

Last week, the Warren County Public Library hosted Dacre Stoker, the great
grandnephew of Bram Stoker, author of one of the most famous gothic horror novels
of all time: Dracula. And living in the heart of cave country, it’s the time of year
where we may be thinking of vampire bats. Continuing our Throwback Thursday
tradition of telling thrilling stories during the month of October, these are the dark
tales behind the world’s most famous fictitious vampire.

It all started with Bram Stoker, the Irish novelist born in 1847. Stoker spent many
years as a theatre critic, personal assistant to Sir Henry Irving, and business
manager for the Lyceum Theatre. An ardent traveler, his visits to Durden Bay and
Whitby inspired some of the stories in his most famous novel.
Published in 1897, Dracula was an unusually written novel at the time, as it was told
from the perspectives of many different narrators. The book was written in pieces,
purposely prosed to be excerpts from newspaper articles, diaries, and journals.
Telling stories about Count Dracula, Stoker was able to maintain more reader faith
because, surely, not all of these storytellers could be sharing something so
outrageous, right?

Some say Count Dracula was based on medieval Romanian folklore, and even
inspired by one of the most famous rulers during the Middle Ages of modern day
Romania. Vlad III, also known as Vlad the Impaler, even referred to himself as Vlad
Dracula on a couple of occasions in the mid-1400s. But historians and literary
scholars have been debating Stoker’s true inspiration for the macabre tales of
Dracula for over a century.

But in 2009, Dacre Stoker, the great grandnephew of Bram, released the novel
Dracula the Un-dead, written with help from Ian Holt. They used handwritten notes
from the original Dracula manuscript that never made it to print, thus further
publishing more of the original work of Bram himself.
In the original novel, Count Dracula is nobility living in a Transylvanian castle. It is
discovered that the count is a vampire, and a group led by Abraham Van Helsing
ultimately hunts and kills the Count at the end. But was he really dead? And who
was the real Count Dracula?

That’s it for Throwback Thursday brought to you by Hart County Tourism.

I’m Telia Butler for Soky Sunrise.