Dracula in the Making

Sources Consulted by Bram Stoker:

While researching background material for Dracula Bram Stoker consulted a number of books to flesh out the Count and make the setting as well as the history within Dracula believable. As can be seen below he consulted a wide range; from history to folklore, travelogues and even science. This list comprises the known sources Stoker consulted. The titles denoting an asterisk are those sources he took notes from, as revealed in the extant notes held  in the Rosenbach Museum & Library, Philadelphia, PA. They have been published and transcribed with commentary: Bram Stoker’s Notes for Dracula: A Facsimile Edition, McFarland, 2008. See “Dracula ‘Historiae Personae’”.

Sabine Baring-Gould, The Book of Were-Wolves: Being an Account of a Terrible Superstition (1865)*

Sabine Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages (1877

Sabine Baring-Gould, Germany, Present and Past (1879)

Fletcher S Bassett, Legends and Superstitions of the Sea and of Sailors — In All Lands and at All Times (1879)

Isabella L Bird, The Golden Chersonese (1883)*

Charles Boner, Transylvania: Its Products and its People (1865)*

Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Vulgar Errors (1646)*

Andrew F Crosse, Round About the Carpathians (1878)*

Rushton M Dorman, The Origin of Primitive Superstitions: And Their Development into the Worship of Spirits and the Doctrine of Spiritual Agency among the Aborigines of America (1881)

A Fellow of the Carpathian Society [Nina Elizabeh Mazuchelli], Magyarland: Being the Narrative of our Travels through the Highlands and Lowlands of Hungary (1881)*

Emily Gerard, “Transylvanian Superstitions” (1885)*

Major E C Johnson, On the Track of the Crescent: Erratic Notes from the Piraeus to Pesth (1885)*

John Jones, The Natural and the Supernatural: Or, Man — Physical, Apparitional and Spiritual (1861)

William Jones, Credulities Past and Present (1880)

William Jones, History and Mystery of Precious Stones (1880)

Rev W Henry Jones and Lewis L Kropf, The Folk-Tales of the Magyars (1889)

Henry Charles Lea, Superstition and Force — Essays on The Wager of Law, The Wager of Battle, The Ordeal and Torture (1878)

Rev Frederick George Lee, The Other World: Or, Glimpses of the Supernatural — Being Facts, Records and Traditions (1875)

Henry Lee, Sea Fables Explained (1883)

Henry Lee, Sea Monsters Unmasked (1883)

Sarah Lee, Anecdotes of Habits and Instincts of Birds, Reptiles and Fishes (1853)

L F Alfred Maury (no titles given)

Herbert Mayo, On the Truths contained in Popular Superstitions — with an Account of Mesmerism (1851)

Thomas Joseph Pettigrew, On Superstitions connected with the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery (1844)

Rev Albert Reville, The Devil: His Origin, Greatness and Decadence (1871)

F C and J Rivington, The Theory of Dreams (1808)*

F K Robinson, A Whitby Glossary (1876)*

Robert H Scott, Fishery Barometer Manual (1887)*

W A Spottiswoode, A Tarantasse Journey Through Eastern Russia in the Autumn of 1856 (1857)

W A Spottiswoode, Miscellany

J B Thiers, Traite des superstitions qui regardent les sacraments (1700-04)

William Wilkinson, An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia: with various Political Observations Relating to Them (1820)*