Along the way, Stoker and his heirs lost control of the count. He has visited space he has sung opera he has spawned mountains of academic research and also featured in more than a few pornographic films. He has appeared in nearly 300 films - a Guinness world record.

In the years since, the count has traveled places that his creator (or biographer) surely never imagined. Ultimately, Stoker and his publisher compromised, and the writer agreed to cut most of the preface and some hundred pages of the manuscript itself. He told Stoker he wouldn’t publish the book, in part because he was based in London, where Jack the Ripper was still at large, and he was concerned that the claim would provoke mass hysteria. Stoker’s publisher, for his part, was apparently disturbed. When Bram Stoker first gave his publisher a copy of the novel that introduced the world to his blood-sucking count, the author began the conversation with a startling claim: “This story is true.” In his original preface to the manuscript, discovered in the Icelandic translation of the novel, Stoker wrote: “I am quite convinced that there is no doubt whatever that the events here described really took place, however unbelievable and incomprehensible they might appear at first sight.”ĭepending on your perspective, this contention is either a haunting mystery that demands unraveling or a clever bit of marketing. Photo: Röhnert /ullstein bild via Getty Images

Dracula by Dacre Stoker