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20 COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT BRAM STOKER & HIS NOVEL DRACULA

Many misconceptions and downright errors appear both in print and on television documentaries about Bram Stoker and his famous novel. Here are 20 of the more widespread ones.

Each of the following is either provably wrong or at best just speculation:

1. Dracula originated in a nightmare which Stoker had after eating too much dressed crab.

2. Stoker began writing Dracula in Whitby.

3. Stoker began writing Dracula in Cruden Bay.

4. Stoker was a member of the Order of the Golden Dawn.

5. Stoker was in love with his employer, Henry Irving.

6. Immediately after its publication, Dracula was a phenomenal success.

7. Stoker travelled to Transylvania to do research on vampires.

8. Stoker died of syphilis.

9. Count Dracula is destroyed by having a stake driven through his heart.

10. Count Dracula cannot go out in the sunlight.

11. "Dracula's Guest" was the excised first chapter of Dracula.

12. Stoker's inspiration for the character of Count Dracula was Vlad the Impaler.

13. Slains Castle at Cruden Bay was the inspiration for Castle Dracula .

14. Bran Castle (in Romania) was the inspiration for Castle Dracula.

15. Vlad the Impaler's Poenari fortress was the inspiration for Castle Dracula.

16. Hungarian professor Arminius Vambery provided Stoker with much information about vampires, Transylvania and Vlad the Impaler.

17. Elizabeth Bathory was a major influence on Dracula.

18. "Nosferatu" is a Romanian word for "vampire".

19. Vampire bats are a common phenomenon in the Carpathians.

20. Vampire legends originate in occurrences of porphyria, a rare skin disorder.

Bran Castle
There are MANY, MANY more!

Want to distinguish between the true and the false? Want to clarify what is speculation and what is fact?

Read my book Dracula: Sense & Nonsense (2000, revised 2006).
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COPYRIGHT©2005 Dr. Elizabeth Miller