Having read Bram Stokers Dracula several times, i did abit of research on the vampire myth and found out that although Count Dracula wasn't real, he was based on a real life person! Vlad the Impaler.

From his name you can guess what he was famous for but after great battles - as well as impaling his enemies on tall spears he would also sit and drink their blood with his meals!!

I also heard recently that the descendants of this creature are suing anyone who uses his name in conjunction with Dracula or any form of vampyrism.

He is a national hero in Romania as he was the first to halt the all-conquering Turks in their tracks. I don't think I would have wanted to spill his beer in the pub though. I don't think he had much of a sense of humour......... Unless he was poking fun at the Turks' love of kebabs when he was engaged in his favourite pastime?

LOL! I think i've met a few Vlads in my local!
Doesn't it make you appreciate the times we're living in! I know in some parts of the world it's still as barbaric but can you imagine facing his army at that point in history?

I will have to dig out my notes on the subject for you after i've moved house.I studied Bram Stoker's Dracula at uni,it was really fascinating, i couldn't believe how anti- female Bram was.Lots of dodgy things come up on the internet when you type in vampires.There are lots of different opinions on whether he used Vlad the Impaler for inspiration,it has been said that he never even knew the story.There was one story about a countess who killed young girls and bathed in their blood to make her more youthful,(oil of olay hadn't been invented!)apparently this story was found in his notes.He thought of the story whilst watching storms at Whitby Bay.Sorry i can't be of much help,it was in the first year i studied it and it is hard to remember it all,even though i have just graduated.

Sarah, I've also read that Bram was not very interested in girls, the one woman in his life who meant anything was his mother who used to tell him stories when he was young and very ill.

The great interest at the time of writing Dracula was Henry Irving, a theatrical actor who Bram was infatuated with and wrote all his reviews. They became great friends and some say that Count Dracula was written with Mr Irving in mind as the main character!

Bram was almost certainly a repressed homosexual and much influenced by his boss the great Victorian actor, Henry Irving.
Apparently Dracula's description in the book, in looks and manners, are very suggestive of Irving who was a very domineering personality.
Stokers letters to a much younger American in later life show that he was quite clearly sexually attracted to him. Bram's wife was a beauty but cold and distant it is said.
Misogyny was ever present in Victorian England to an extent that the ferocity of the first two Ripper killings didn't arouse much comment because such attacks were so commonplace in London.
Stoker as a repressed homosexual, living in a misogynistic and generally repressed society may well have feared/hated women.

Especially as the rise of the New Woman was occuring,the only poweful woman in Dracula,who doesn't turn into a vampire,is Mina who is often described as having man-like qualities.

Originally posted by sarah_d
He thought of the story whilst watching storms at Whitby Bay.

A few years ago i picked up a book in Whitby which was about things that had occured there while Bram Stoker was there.

Apparently, during one of these storms a cargo vessel was shipwrecked around there and when it was salvaged and they took a look in its cargo hold, all they found was long boxes full of earth. This is where Stoker got the idea that Dracula must sleep in the soil of his homeland, or so it is reckoned.

I'll take a look on my shelves and in the shed when i get time and see if i can find the name and ISBN of the book, it certainly was an interesting read.

Wilf

I understand Michael Howard is the latest incarnation according to various press releases. Is this fact?

The problem with your title and statement is that one doesn't appear to confirm the other.
Just because Vlad was a bit bloodthirsty does not give him the qualities of his fictional representation of Dracula?

I have an interesting article for you
Dracula the Catholic Hero (http://www.beneaththeshades.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=31&page=1)

Happy digging.
Moon Maiden

Dracula was alive and well at the last CRB meet! :lol:

http://img65.photobucket.com/albums/v197/RichXboxsource/Dracula.jpg

Stoker popularised the vampire legend, but long before him there were vampire stories in Victorian Britain. Two that come to mind are the penny-dreadful story of Varney the Vampire (1840s I think) and the short story of Carmilla (a female one) by the ghost writer Sheridan le Fanu (not sure of the date, 1880s or so). I might have more to add when I've done more research

Carmilla is fantastic,all the creepiness and sexual tension.

I agree Sarah, Carmilla is a minor masterpiece. And of course, with the coming of film we have had many examples, of which amongst the earliest, and still to my mind the greatest, was Nosferatu, which presents a very different looking and scarier vampire than the classic Christopher Lee/Hammer stereotype.

I'm sure there are hundreds of websites devoted to vampires and I haven't looked them up, but there is also the authoritative book The Vampire by Montague Summers, which goes into the phenomenon in detail.

could also try the Natural History of the Vampire by Anthony Masters...I know amazon have a few collectable and second hand copies.

Moon