Dracula Trivia
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This Dracula trivia quiz has 96 free questions with answers and spans the whole legend, from the book to the screen to the pop-culture Counts. It starts with Bram Stoker's 1897 novel - its letters-and-diaries structure, the ship Demeter, Whitby, Renfield's flies, Van Helsing's garlic and the working title Stoker abandoned at the last minute - and the real history behind the name: Vlad the Impaler, the Order of the Dragon and why Bran Castle's Dracula connection is mostly marketing. From there it moves to the movies: the unauthorised 1922 Nosferatu that a court ordered destroyed, Bela Lugosi's 1931 Universal classic and its Spanish-language twin, Christopher Lee's fanged, colour Hammer Dracula, Coppola's Oscar-winning 1992 version, plus Sesame Street's Count von Count and Hotel Transylvania. About a third of the questions are easy warm-ups; the rest will test even a lifelong horror fan. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and the primary sources it cites, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
30 of 96 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In what year was Bram Stoker's novel Dracula first published?
1897
Dracula was first published in 1897 by Archibald Constable and Company in London; a flawed US copyright filing later left the story in the American public domain.
Q 02Bram Stoker was born in which country?
Ireland
Bram Stoker was born in Ireland, at Clontarf in November 1847, and spent his first seven years bedridden with an undiagnosed illness.
Q 03What was the novel's title on the printer's typescript before a last-minute change?
The Un-Dead
The printer's typescript was titled The Un-Dead; Stoker switched to Dracula only weeks before publication, so the contract with Constable carried the earlier name.
Q 04Stoker took the name 'Dracula' from William Wilkinson's 1820 history of which two principalities?
Wallachia and Moldavia
Stoker took the name from William Wilkinson's 1820 Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, whose footnote said Dracula meant devil in Wallachian.
Q 05In the novel, what is the name of the ship that carries Dracula and his boxes of earth to England?
The Demeter
The Demeter, a Russian schooner out of Varna, runs aground in a storm with its dead captain lashed to the wheel and a large dog leaping ashore.
Q 06In which English seaside town does Dracula come ashore?
Whitby
Dracula lands at Whitby, the North Yorkshire port where Stoker holidayed in 1890; St Mary's church above the harbour is reached by 199 steps.
Q 07How is the novel Dracula structured?
Letters, diaries and clippings
Dracula is an epistolary novel told through letters, diaries and clippings, plus phonograph entries and a ship's log, so no single narrator sees the whole story.
Q 08In which city does Mina's fiancé end up delirious in hospital after escaping Dracula's castle?
Budapest
Mina's fiancé is found in the Hospital of St Joseph and Ste Mary in Budapest; she travels there to nurse him and they marry before going home.
Q 09What does Dracula's asylum patient Renfield feed the flies he collects to?
Spiders
Renfield feeds his flies to spiders, then the spiders to sparrows, hoping to absorb their lives; Dr Seward records the zoophagous habit in his phonograph diary.
Q 10Professor Abraham Van Helsing is from which country?
Holland
Van Helsing is from Holland; Dr Seward's old teacher practises in Amsterdam, speaks broken English, and brings consecrated wafers with him to fight the vampire.
Q 11In the novel, Dracula claims descent from which famous conqueror?
Attila the Hun
Dracula names Attila the Hun among his Székely ancestors, asking his guest what devil or witch was ever so great as Attila, 'whose blood is in these veins'.
Q 12Which of these features does Stoker give Dracula in the novel?
Hair on his palms
Stoker gives Dracula hair on his palms, with a long white moustache, pointed ears and sharp teeth; he casts no shadow and shows no reflection in a mirror.
Q 13In Stoker's novel, what effect does sunlight have on Dracula?
It weakens him but is not fatal
Q 21According to historian Radu Florescu, in which Transylvanian Saxon town was Vlad born?
Sighișoara
Florescu placed Vlad's birth in Sighișoara, where his father kept a residence in the 1430s; Vlad and his younger brother Radu were later held hostage by the Ottomans.
Q 22Bran Castle, marketed to tourists as 'Dracula's Castle', was built in 1377 by whom?
Local Saxons
Local Saxons from Brașov built Bran Castle in 1377 under a royal privilege from Louis I; there is no evidence Stoker ever heard of it.
Q 23What is the renamed vampire villain called in the unauthorised 1922 film Nosferatu?
Count Orlok
Max Schreck played Count Orlok; F. W. Murnau's unauthorised adaptation changed the names and moved the story to Wisborg to dodge Stoker's estate.
In the novel sunlight's effect on Dracula is that it weakens him but is not fatal: he walks London by day, and the fatal-sunlight rule came from the 1922 film Nosferatu.
Q 14Which actor-manager, Stoker's employer at the Lyceum Theatre, is widely agreed to have partly inspired Dracula?
Henry Irving
Stoker befriended Irving after reviewing one of his performances, and became the Lyceum's business manager in 1878.
Q 15Stoker's wife Florence Balcombe had previously been courted by which famous writer?
Oscar Wilde
Wilde was upset by her choice, but Stoker later renewed the friendship and visited him on the Continent after his disgrace.
Q 16Sheridan Le Fanu's 1872 vampire novella, an acknowledged influence on Dracula, was called what?
Carmilla
Carmilla, serialised 1871–72, features a female vampire who preys on a lonely young woman and can take the form of a large black cat.
Q 17A 1901 Icelandic 'translation' of Dracula turned out to be based on a serialisation from which country?
Sweden
Both versions were titled 'Powers of Darkness'; scholars only realised the Swedish original existed after rediscovering it in newspaper archives.
Q 18Vlad the Impaler ruled which principality, in three separate reigns?
Wallachia
Vlad III was Voivode of Wallachia in 1448, 1456–1462 and 1476, and was killed fighting the Ottomans around the turn of 1476–77.
Q 19Vlad's father earned the name 'Dracul' as a member of which knightly brotherhood?
The Order of the Dragon
Vlad II was inducted into the Order of the Dragon in 1431 by Sigismund of Luxemburg, who founded it to defend Christendom against the Ottomans; 'Dracula' means son of Dracul.
Q 20Which Ottoman sultan did Vlad try to capture in a night attack at Târgoviște in June 1462?
Mehmed II
Mehmed II led the 1462 invasion after Vlad impaled his envoys Hamza Bey and Katabolinos; the night raid failed to reach the sultan's tent, and Vlad's brother Radu fought for the Ottomans.
Q 24What did a court order after Florence Stoker sued the makers of Nosferatu for copyright infringement?
All copies destroyed
A German court ruled for Florence Stoker in July 1925 and ordered all copies destroyed, but prints already abroad survived and the film is regarded as a masterpiece.
Q 25Who directed the 1979 remake Nosferatu the Vampyre, starring Klaus Kinski?
Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog directed the 1979 film with Klaus Kinski as the Count and Isabelle Adjani as Lucy, shooting German and English versions back to back.
Q 26Universal's 1931 Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi, was based directly on what?
A 1924 stage play
Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston wrote the play, and Lugosi had already played the Count in it on Broadway.
Q 27The 1931 Dracula's sets were reused at night to shoot a simultaneous version in which language?
Spanish
Carlos Villarías played the Count in the Spanish-language Drácula, shot at night on the same sets with Lupita Tovar, and running almost half an hour longer.
Q 28The music over the 1931 film's opening credits is an excerpt from which ballet?
Swan Lake
The credits play Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake; the film has no original score, and Universal reused the same excerpt over the titles of The Mummy in 1932.
Q 29What was Bela Lugosi's surname at birth?
Blaskó
Lugosi was born Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó in 1882 and took his stage name from his birthplace, Lugos; he emigrated in 1919 and reached the United States in 1920.
Q 30Bela Lugosi was buried wearing what?
His Dracula cape and costume
Lugosi was buried in his Dracula cape and costume in 1956; contrary to legend he never asked for it, and his son Bela Jr. and widow Hope chose it for him.