Dracula Story : Vlad The Impaler - Myth and History

The Irish writer Bram Stoker could easily have seen in the Royal Library in London a few of those Saxon prints from the fifteenth century, which were found in the collections of the British Museum, where Vlad Ţepeş is described as a monster, a human blood drinking vampire and someone who takes great pleasure in cruelty. He probably had access to Johann Christian Engel’s historical writings about Moldavia and Walachia describing Vlad Ţepeş as a bloody tyrant, which probably gave him the idea to turn the Prince of Walachia into a model for his fictional character "Dracula". Some historians have claimed that Stoker had a friendly relationship with a Hungarian professor from the University of Budapest, Vambery Arminius (Hermann Vamberger), who may have provided Stoker with information about Vlad Ţepeş. Moreover, the fact that Dr. Abraham Van Helsing mentions his friend Arminius in the 1897 novel as the source of his knowledge of Vlad III named Dracula, seems to support this hypothesis.

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