Vlad III was the ruler of Wallachia, an area that covered a large part of Romania’s current land mass. It was due to Vlad’s apparent lust for blood that he was given the epithet ‘the Impaler’. However, during his lifetime he also had another, more instantly recognisable name. Vlad III was known as Dracula and many people therefore reported that Stoker based his character on a real historical character, but the evidence does not support this.
Vlad III’s father, Vlad II, was a member of the Order of the Dragon, a chivalric order charged with fighting the enemies of Christianity. In the case of the Wallachian ruler, this meant the Turks on his southern border. As a member of the Order of the Dragon, Vlad added the Romanian word for dragon – dracul – to his name, and became known as Vlad Dracul. As son of the dragon, Vlad III was referred to as Vlad Dracula. Importantly, however, the word dracul has a dual meaning in the Romanian language as it also means ‘devil’. This made Vlad III the son of the devil.
We know from his notes that Bram Stoker read the 19th Century British Consul William Wilkinson’s book about life in Romania, ‘Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia’. The book made several references to the term Dracula, but Stoker’s only interest in the word was that it was associated with people who portrayed devilish or cruel behaviour. It was because of the literal meaning of the word that Stoker took it to name his blood-sucking creation.
Dracula was mostly written in the 1890s. Stoker produced over a hundred pages of notes for the novel, drawing extensively from Transylvanian folklore and history. Some scholars have suggested that the character of Dracula was inspired by historical figures like the Wallachian prince Vlad the Impaler or the countess Elizabeth Báthory, but there is widespread disagreement. Stoker's notes mention neither figure. He found the name Dracula in Whitby's public library while holidaying there, picking it because he thought it meant devil in Romanian.
Following its publication, Dracula was positively received by reviewers who pointed to its effective use of horror. In contrast, reviewers who wrote negatively of the novel regarded it as excessively frightening. Comparisons to other works of Gothic fiction were common, including its structural similarity to Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White (1859). In the past century, Dracula has been situated as a piece of Gothic fiction. Modern scholars explore the novel within its historical context—the Victorian era—and discuss its depiction of gender roles, sexuality, and race.
Dracula is one of the most famous pieces of English literature. Many of the book's characters have entered popular culture as archetypal versions of their characters; for example, Count Dracula as the quintessential vampire, and Abraham Van Helsing as an iconic vampire hunter. The novel, which is in the public domain, has been adapted for film over 30 times, and its characters have made numerous appearances in virtually all media.
