50 Fun Facts About Dracula

In what year was Bram Stoker's novel Dracula first published?

It has never been out of print, though Stoker's incorrect US copyright filing later put the story in the American public domain.

Bram Stoker was born in which country?

He was bedridden for the first seven years of his life with an undiagnosed illness before going on to Trinity College Dublin.

What was the novel's title on the printer's typescript before a last-minute change?

Biographer Barbara Belford thought the finished book looked 'shabby' as a result of the late switch.

Stoker took the name 'Dracula' from William Wilkinson's 1820 history of which two principalities?

He wrote most of the manuscript on summer holidays in Cruden Bay, Scotland, between 1893 and 1896.

In the novel, what is the name of the ship that carries Dracula and his boxes of earth to England?

When it runs aground at Whitby the captain's corpse is found lashed to the helm and a large dog leaps ashore.

In which English seaside town does Dracula come ashore?

The town has hosted the twice-yearly Whitby Goth Weekend since 1993; its church is reached by 199 steps.

How is the novel Dracula structured?

The vampire hunters fight back with typewriters, phonographs, telegrams, blood transfusions and Winchester rifles alongside garlic and crucifixes.

Lucy Westenra receives marriage proposals from three men in one day. Which of these is NOT one of them?

Harker is engaged to Lucy's best friend Mina Murray; the Harkers later name their son Quincey after the Texan.

In which city does Mina's fiancé end up delirious in hospital after escaping Dracula's castle?

Mina travels there to nurse him, and they marry before returning to England.

What does Dracula's asylum patient Renfield feed the flies he collects to?

He is treated by Dr John Seward; on film he has been played by Dwight Frye, Tom Waits and, in 2023, Nicholas Hoult.

Professor Abraham Van Helsing is from which country?

He is a doctor, lawyer, philosopher and metaphysician who speaks Dutch, English and German and brings sacred wafers from Amsterdam.

In the novel, Dracula claims descent from which famous conqueror?

He calls himself a Székely and boasts to Harker that his people are 'infused with the blood of heroes'.

Which of these features does Stoker give Dracula in the novel?

He also has a long white moustache, pointed ears and sharp teeth, casts no shadow and shows no reflection.

In Stoker's novel, what effect does sunlight have on Dracula?

Death by sunlight was invented by the 1922 film Nosferatu, and every vampire story since has borrowed it.

Which actor-manager, Stoker's employer at the Lyceum Theatre, is widely agreed to have partly inspired Dracula?

Stoker befriended Irving after reviewing one of his performances, and became the Lyceum's business manager in 1878.

Stoker's wife Florence Balcombe had previously been courted by which famous writer?

Wilde was upset by her choice, but Stoker later renewed the friendship and visited him on the Continent after his disgrace.

Sheridan Le Fanu's 1872 vampire novella, an acknowledged influence on Dracula, was called what?

Its lesbian vampire can turn into a cat, as Dracula can turn into a dog.

A 1901 Icelandic 'translation' of Dracula turned out to be based on a serialisation from which country?

Both versions were titled 'Powers of Darkness'; scholars only realised the Swedish original existed after rediscovering it in newspaper archives.

Stoker's widow published a 'missing chapter' of the novel as a short story in 1914. What is it called?

It appeared two years after Stoker's death and was first included in an edition of the novel in 1979.

Vlad the Impaler ruled which principality, in three separate reigns?

He was Voivode in 1448, 1456-1462 and 1476, and was killed in battle in 1476 or 1477.

Vlad's father earned the name 'Dracul' as a member of which knightly brotherhood?

Sigismund of Luxemburg founded it to halt the Ottoman advance into Europe; 'Dracula' means 'son of Dracul'.

Which Ottoman sultan did Vlad try to capture in a night attack at Târgoviște in June 1462?

Vlad had earlier had the sultan's two envoys impaled; his brother Radu was fighting on the Ottoman side.

According to historian Radu Florescu, in which Transylvanian Saxon town was Vlad born?

Vlad and his younger brother Radu were later held hostage in the Ottoman Empire to guarantee their father's loyalty.

Bran Castle, marketed to tourists as 'Dracula's Castle', was built in 1377 by whom?

There is no evidence Stoker ever heard of it, and his crumbling fictional castle looks nothing like it; it now houses Queen Marie's art collection.

In the 1922 film Nosferatu, the vampire villain was renamed to dodge Stoker's estate. What was he called?

Max Schreck played him; the film was an unauthorised adaptation, so the names and details were changed to dodge the estate.

What did a court order after Florence Stoker sued the makers of Nosferatu for copyright infringement?

Producer Prana Film agreed to destroy the prints in May 1924, but several survived and the film is now considered a masterpiece.

Who directed the 1979 remake Nosferatu the Vampyre, starring Klaus Kinski?

Robert Eggers's own remake, first announced in 2015, finally reached streaming in 2024.

Universal's 1931 Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi, was based directly on what?

Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston wrote the play, and Lugosi had already played the Count in it on Broadway.

The 1931 Dracula's sets were reused at night to shoot a simultaneous version in which language?

Carlos Villarías played the Count in that version; the English one will enter the US public domain on January 1, 2027.

The music over the 1931 film's opening credits is an excerpt from which ballet?

No original score was ever composed for the film, and Universal reused the same Tchaikovsky excerpt for The Mummy in 1932.

In which town in the Kingdom of Hungary (now Romania) was Bela Lugosi born?

He took his stage name from his birthplace; he had to flee Hungary in 1919 over his socialist politics.

Bela Lugosi was buried wearing what?

Contrary to legend, he never asked for it; his son and wife decided it was what he would have wanted.

Which notorious director gave Lugosi late low-budget roles, including a posthumous cameo in Plan 9 from Outer Space?

Lugosi's addiction to prescribed morphine and methadone, plus alcoholism, had sent his career into decline after 1948.

What was Hammer's 1958 Dracula, starring Christopher Lee, the earliest vampire movie to do?

It also introduced fangs, red contact lenses and ready-prepared wooden stakes, with Peter Cushing as Van Helsing.

In Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966), how many lines of dialogue does Christopher Lee's Count speak?

Lee said he refused to speak the poor dialogue; screenwriter Jimmy Sangster insisted the script never had any lines for him. He hisses instead.

Christopher Lee first worked with Peter Cushing at Hammer in 1957 playing which creature?

Cushing was Baron Frankenstein in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957); Lee later played Scaramanga, Count Dooku and Saruman.

Christopher Lee was the step-cousin of which famous author, whose uncle married Lee's mother?

Lee finally got to play a Bond villain, Scaramanga, in The Man with the Golden Gun in 1974.

Who played the Count in Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 film Bram Stoker's Dracula?

Hopkins was Van Helsing, Reeves was Harker and Winona Ryder was Mina; critics praised Oldman and savaged Reeves.

How many Academy Awards did Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula win?

Eiko Ishioka's costumes, the sound editing and the makeup all won; it was nominated for four in total.

Sesame Street's Count von Count made his first appearance in which year?

In that fourth-season premiere he counts six blocks with Bert and Ernie; thunder rolls whenever he finishes counting.

In the 2012 animated film Hotel Transylvania, who voices Dracula?

Selena Gomez voices his daughter Mavis, who is turning 118 and wants to see the human world.

In Hotel Transylvania, why did Dracula build his monsters-only hotel in 1895?

He raises his daughter Mavis there in safety until a backpacker named Jonathan stumbles in.

Bram Stoker spent ten years in the civil service at which institution while moonlighting as a critic?

He reviewed for the Dublin Evening Mail and founded the Dublin Sketching Club in 1879.

Which of these was another of Bram Stoker's horror novels, published in 1911?

He wrote a dozen novels and novellas, including The Jewel of Seven Stars, but his reputation rests solely on Dracula.

In 2015, Guinness World Records named Dracula the most portrayed literary character, ahead of whom?

The Count has been adapted for film, TV, games and animation over 700 times, with nearly a thousand more comic and stage appearances.

In Stoker's early notes, the vampire's castle was set in which region rather than Transylvania?

The notes also feature a German professor named Max Windshoeffel facing a 'Count Wampyr', and a vampire hunter killed by a werewolf.

Stoker is thought to have written most of Dracula on summer holidays in which Scottish village?

He said the book took about three years, squeezed in around his duties as Henry Irving's business manager between 1893 and 1896.

Contemporary reviewers most often compared Dracula to which Wilkie Collins novel?

One anonymous critic dubbed Stoker 'the Edgar Allan Poe of the nineties', and Arthur Conan Doyle wrote to congratulate him on 'so fine a book'.

How much did the first edition of Dracula, bound in yellow cloth with red lettering, cost in 1897?

Stoker earned no royalties on the first thousand copies, and the book made him little money in his lifetime despite good reviews.

The first film to feature Count Dracula, Drakula halála (c. 1921), was made in which country?

Very little of Károly Lajthay's silent film survives; F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu followed a year later as the second adaptation.