The novel Dracula was published on this date in 1897. 10 things you might not know about Dracula:
Dracula means ‘devil’ in the Wallachian language, in Romanian, Dracul means ‘Dragon’ and Dracula means "son of a Dragon".
The idea for the story may have come from a nightmare Bram Stoker had after eating dodgy seafood. After a "helping of dressed crab at supper” he dreamed of “a vampire king rising from the tomb” and was compelled to write it down.
Other possible influences in the development of the character include Jack the Ripper, Vlad the Impaler, Elizabeth Bathory, the Sidhe (blood-sucking fairies from Irish folklore), and even Stoker’s boss, a chap called Henry Irving, a renowned Shakespearean actor and owner of the Lyceum Theatre in London where Stoker worked as his assistant.
Slains Castle in Scotland is thought to have been the inspiration for Dracula’s home.
Bram Stoker never actually visited Transylvania, but he did read travel books and train timetables and included details about hotels and Transylvanian food.
The working title of the novel was The Dead Undead, later shortened to The Undead. The title was only changed to Dracula just before publication.
Dracula’s supernatural powers include hypnosis, telepathy, shape-shifting, creating mists and controlling animals such as Bats and Wolves.
Count Dracula is of Hungarian descent and led his troops against the Turks in the 15th Century.
While the book wasn’t an instant best seller, and didn’t make Stoker much money (in fact he was so poor he had to ask for a compassionate grant from the Royal Literary Fund) It has never been out of print. Films featuring the character have kept the sales going, although Stoker’s widow almost put a stop to it. A German company made a film called Nosferatu, which was essentially the same story with the names of the characters changed. Stoker’s widow sued and a German court ordered that every copy of the film be destroyed. One copy survived, however, and found its way to America where it developed a cult following. Since then, the Dracula character has appeared in over 200 movies, 11 of which featured Christopher Lee as the Count.
The plot is as follows: A young solicitor called Jonathan Harker goes to Transylvania to sell a house in England to Dracula. Dracula traps Harker in his castle with three Vampire women and goes to England, by hiding on a ship and killing the crew. In England, he bites a young woman called Lucy Westenra and turns her into a vampire. Lucy is killed by a doctor called Abraham van Helsing. Dracula also bites Jonathan's wife Mina. The other characters try to defeat Dracula, by chasing him back to Transylvania and killing him.
New!!!
The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.
Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.
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