Bram Stoker Descendant Brings Dracula Back from the Dead

The reality is that Dracula is alive and well, with a host of vampire shows and movies wowing audiences lately, all of which are based on the legendary vampire. Now, however, the original is making a comeback in the form of a new novel that has been penned by Dacre Stoker, the great-grandnephew of the original novel’s author, and Ian Holt. Bram Stoker, the Irishman who wrote the original Dracula novel in 1897, apparently lives on…as does his legendary undead villain.

The new novel, titled "Dracula: The Un-Dead," is almost 500 pages and takes place in the year 1912, 25 years after the end of the original book. With the new novel, Stoker and Holt claim to be "taking Dracula back" from the stereotypical portrayal that was promulgated during the early years of film. Said Holt, "When people think of Dracula they think of handsome Bela Lugosi. Dracula was nothing like that. He was old and hunched over, had hair on his palms, and bad breath." Said Stoker, "He was out of the grave, he smelt like death."

Holt originally came up with the idea to write a sequel to the original novel in 2003, and to do so he and Stoker traveled across Eastern Europe to meet with scholars. The pair even joined the Transylvania Society of Dracula. After their research was done, they put together the current novel which, according to Stoker, borrows from the original while extending it. "We go back to the original but we don’t leave it at that," says Stoker. In addition, the pair of writers also inserted Stoker’s famous but mysterious ancestor. Says Stoker of the insertion of Bram into the novel, "He was misunderstood, mysterious, no one knows why he wrote Dracula. He died without knowing the success of his iconic character. His life was a struggle."