Dracula at 125: How a nobleman vampire got his fangs into the world

Count Dracula is one of the most recognised figures in literature around the world. On the novel’s 125th anniversary, David Barnett asks what it is about Bram Stoker’s story that captures people’s imaginations

Are there many people who haven’t heard the name Dracula? (Alamy/Universal)

Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula isn’t really that explicit about the motivation behind the undead Transylvanian nobleman’s journey to England, which forms the bulk of the book.

It’s hardly a spoiler to say that the plucky band led by Abraham Van Helsing eventually foil whatever plans Count Dracula had, be they merely to dine well in London, the centre of the Victorian world, or to spread the plague of vampirism across Britain.

But 125 years after Dublin-born Stoker published his novel, on 26 May 1897, his character has indeed achieved the kind of viral domination that any self-respecting vampire would drool at.