This Dracula trivia quiz has 50 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 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In what year was Bram Stoker's novel Dracula first published?
1897
It has never been out of print, though Stoker's incorrect US copyright filing later put the story in the American public domain.
Q 02Bram Stoker was born in which country?
Ireland
He was bedridden for the first seven years of his life with an undiagnosed illness before going on to Trinity College Dublin.
Q 03What was the novel's title on the printer's typescript before a last-minute change?
The Un-Dead
Biographer Barbara Belford thought the finished book looked 'shabby' as a result of the late switch.
Q 04Stoker took the name 'Dracula' from William Wilkinson's 1820 history of which two principalities?
Wallachia and Moldavia
He wrote most of the manuscript on summer holidays in Cruden Bay, Scotland, between 1893 and 1896.
Q 05In the novel, what is the name of the ship that carries Dracula and his boxes of earth to England?
The Demeter
When it runs aground at Whitby the captain's corpse is found lashed to the helm and a large dog leaps ashore.
Q 06In which English seaside town does Dracula come ashore?
Whitby
The town has hosted the twice-yearly Whitby Goth Weekend since 1993; its church is reached by 199 steps.
Q 07How is the novel Dracula structured?
Letters, diaries and clippings
The vampire hunters fight back with typewriters, phonographs, telegrams, blood transfusions and Winchester rifles alongside garlic and crucifixes.
Q 08Lucy Westenra receives marriage proposals from three men in one day. Which of these is NOT one of them?
Jonathan Harker
Harker is engaged to Lucy's best friend Mina Murray; the Harkers later name their son Quincey after the Texan.
Q 09In which city does Mina's fiancé end up delirious in hospital after escaping Dracula's castle?
Budapest
Mina travels there to nurse him, and they marry before returning to England.
Q 10What does Dracula's asylum patient Renfield feed the flies he collects to?
Spiders
He is treated by Dr John Seward; on film he has been played by Dwight Frye, Tom Waits and, in 2023, Nicholas Hoult.
Q 11Professor Abraham Van Helsing is from which country?
Holland
He is a doctor, lawyer, philosopher and metaphysician who speaks Dutch, English and German and brings sacred wafers from Amsterdam.
Q 12In the novel, Dracula claims descent from which famous conqueror?
Attila the Hun
He calls himself a Székely and boasts to Harker that his people are 'infused with the blood of heroes'.
Q 13Which of these features does Stoker give Dracula in the novel?
Hair on his palms
He also has a long white moustache, pointed ears and sharp teeth, casts no shadow and shows no reflection.
Q 21Vlad's father earned the name 'Dracul' as a member of which knightly brotherhood?
The Order of the Dragon
Sigismund of Luxemburg founded it to halt the Ottoman advance into Europe; 'Dracula' means 'son of Dracul'.
Q 22Which Ottoman sultan did Vlad try to capture in a night attack at Târgoviște in June 1462?
Mehmed II
Vlad had earlier had the sultan's two envoys impaled; his brother Radu was fighting on the Ottoman side.
Q 23According to historian Radu Florescu, in which Transylvanian Saxon town was Vlad born?
Sighișoara
Vlad and his younger brother Radu were later held hostage in the Ottoman Empire to guarantee their father's loyalty.
Q 14In Stoker's novel, what effect does sunlight have on Dracula?
It weakens him but is not fatal
Death by sunlight was invented by the 1922 film Nosferatu, and every vampire story since has borrowed it.
Q 15Which 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 16Stoker'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 17Sheridan Le Fanu's 1872 vampire novella, an acknowledged influence on Dracula, was called what?
Carmilla
Its lesbian vampire can turn into a cat, as Dracula can turn into a dog.
Q 18A 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 19Stoker's widow published a 'missing chapter' of the novel as a short story in 1914. What is it called?
Dracula's Guest
It appeared two years after Stoker's death and was first included in an edition of the novel in 1979.
Q 20Vlad the Impaler ruled which principality, in three separate reigns?
Wallachia
He was Voivode in 1448, 1456-1462 and 1476, and was killed in battle in 1476 or 1477.
Q 24Bran Castle, marketed to tourists as 'Dracula's Castle', was built in 1377 by whom?
Local Saxons
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.
Q 25In the 1922 film Nosferatu, the vampire villain was renamed to dodge Stoker's estate. What was he called?
Count Orlok
Max Schreck played him; the film was an unauthorised adaptation, so the names and details were changed to dodge the estate.
Q 26What did a court order after Florence Stoker sued the makers of Nosferatu for copyright infringement?
All copies destroyed
Producer Prana Film agreed to destroy the prints in May 1924, but several survived and the film is now considered a masterpiece.
Q 27Who directed the 1979 remake Nosferatu the Vampyre, starring Klaus Kinski?
Werner Herzog
Robert Eggers's own remake, first announced in 2015, finally reached streaming in 2024.
Q 28Universal'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 29The 1931 Dracula's sets were reused at night to shoot a simultaneous version in which language?
Spanish
Carlos Villarías played the Count in that version; the English one will enter the US public domain on January 1, 2027.
Q 30The music over the 1931 film's opening credits is an excerpt from which ballet?
Swan Lake
No original score was ever composed for the film, and Universal reused the same Tchaikovsky excerpt for The Mummy in 1932.