Miller, a professor of English at Memorial University of Newfoundland (Canada) has challenged us to drop all the falsehoods and unsubstantiated pet theories about Dracula and bring our work up to speed with all we have discovered in the past three decades of concentrated study of Dracula. Building on two decades of detailed study, bolstered by her interaction with her fellow academics, her new book is a wake up call to rid our writings and public pronouncements of numerous persisting errors concerning Count Dracula, author Bram Stoker, Transylvania, and especially Prince Vlad....

She points the accusing finger and demands that those of us who pretend to be scholars must put everything else aside and be true to our profession.... Then having girded ourselves with knowledge, Miller also suggests a more daunting secondary agenda -- that we launch a search and destroy mission against the widespread body of misinformation in the popular culture, with a special focus on the media. For those of us who lack any crusading spirit, we can at least cease to cooperate with the future spread of falsehoods. And lest we have any doubts concerning the errors no longer to be spread aboard, throughout her text Miller has punctuated her catalog of errors with emphatic academic code words (often used privately in scholarly gatherings, but very rarely used among the uninitiated) -- "Claptrap," "Poppycock!" "Utter trash," "Baloney," and "This stinks."

But is Miller really out to destroy all our fun? In the end, I think not. Dracula is as fascinating as it is important in the history of literature. Even with many of our misconceptions about it pushed aside, we can still enjoy our movies, worship at the shrine of Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz, and occasionally contribute to the next generation of expanding knowledge. We must agree that for every problem that Miller pronounced solved, a new one now stands in its place to entertain us. Rest assured, the romantic vampire, the vegetarian vampire, and the psychologically obsessed vampire are here to stay. We will survive the divorce between Count Dracula and Vlad the Impaler. Breathe easy.

Now, lest my having some fun at Dr. Miller's expense be misunderstood, in closing let me state unequivocally, Dracula Sense & Nonsense is a very important volume. It stands out amid the many publications of the last decade and joins that small select set of books that belongs among the desk references of every serious scholar, researcher, and writer in the field. Yes, most of us will feel some discomfort on first reading. She even has the audacity to criticize my books in several places, the pain of which was only slightly alleviated by her own confessions of falling short of the high standard she is setting. But I hope that you were as lucky as I was early on in having a teacher who drilled into me the virtue of being grateful to colleagues who assist us in checking our errors.

[For the full text of Melton's review, visit www.cesnur.org/testi/dracula_nonsense.htm]