Dracula: Facts and Figures!

· Bram Stoker’s Dracula was published in 1897 and took 7 years to research and write.

· Bram Stoker’s Dracula is the biggest selling novel of all time.

· Stoker first came across the name ‘Dracula’ while spending the summer in Whitby in 1890.

· An estimated 160 films (as of 2004) feature Dracula in a major role, a number second only to Sherlock Holmes. The total number of films that include a reference to Dracula may reach as high as 649 movies, according to the Internet Movie Database.

· The story was adapted in 1927 for the Broadway stage and starred Bela Lugosi as the title role. In 1931, Todd Browning brought Dracula to the big screen when Lugosi starred in the film version of the play.

· Stoker never lived to see the success that is Dracula, as he died in 1912 in near poverty.

· Even though it is indicated throughout the novel that he is to be destroyed with a wooden stake, this is not how it happens. In the final scene, Harker and Morris dispatch the Count with knives.

· There is nothing in Stoker's novel to indicate that the vampire can be destroyed by sunlight. Count Dracula moves about freely in the daytime, though with a reduction in his supernatural powers. (The "sunlight" motif entered the legend as a result of the 1922 film "Nosferatu".)

More fun facts and figures can be found in issue 24 of Northern Exposure, our Friends magazine. To find out about this and other benefits to being a Friend, click here!