*Post written by James Wethington, library assistant of the University Archives and Special Collections.
As summer approaches, there is temporal euphoria of no homework, no assigned readings, and no papers; however, for some, there is no fun in the sun, especially for vampires. The best-known vampire in modern literature is Count Dracula, sorry Twilight fans.
Inside Cover of Dracula (Photograph Credit: James Wethington)
Bram Stoker wrote Dracula in 1897. Before writing his international smash-hit and classic, Stoker was involved in British theatre. He worked for Sir Henry Irving from 1878 until 1905 (The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica, 2010). Dracula is a combination of “… central European folktales of the nosferatu, or undead, with historical accounts of 15th-century prince Vlad the Impaler, who allegedly impaled 100,000 victims and was given the epithet Dracula (a derivative of Romanian drac, or “devil”)” (Cregan-Reid, 2017).
Dracula has an everlasting legacy on horror literature. It created a new genre for authors like Anne Rice (author of The Vampire Chronicles) and Stephanie Meyers (author of the Twilight series) to write in another world. As George R.R. Martin stated, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”
References
Cregan-Reid, V. (2017, February 28). Dracula. Retrieved May 01, 2017, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dracula-novel
The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. (2010, August 10). Bram Stoker. Retrieved May 01, 2017, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bram-Stoker
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