Although published in 1897, Stoker’s notebook suggests he started working on Dracula in 1890. His research notes confirm his intense interest in vampire folklore, which had been part of the cultural conversation in England since the London Journal reported the case of Arnold Paul in 1732. A Serbian Hajduk, Paul allegedly returned from death to drain the blood of his fellow villagers, violence that only ceased when his exhumed body was driven through with a stake and incinerated.
The case of Arnold Paul sparked a trend for vampire research. The archives at Whitby Library and the London Library, where Stoker was a member, suggest that he borrowed multiple books on this subject, including Augustin Calmet’s celebrated The Phantom World (1850) and H. C. Lea’s Superstition and Force (1892). Other borrowings relate to Transylvania and Wallachia (Romania), areas in which vampiric action had been reported over the years. One research note also confirms a connection between Stoker’s Count and Vlad the Impaler, also known as Vlad Dracula — a notoriously cruel Wallachian ruler with a penchant for impaling his enemies with a stake and leaving them to die.
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