Dracula: Sense and Nonsense

Dr. Elizabeth Miller

Think of everything you know about Dracula. Now, rethink it. Turns out a lot of what most people believe about Bram Stoker's popular vampire isn't true at all.

Enter Dr. Elizabeth Miller, English. While she may describe herself as "Johnny-come-lately" to the field of Dracula studies, she is recognized internationally as an expert on both Stoker's novel and the historical Dracula, Vlad the Impaler. (And yes, there's a difference.)

Earlier this year, Dr. Miller's efforts at differentiating the two resulted in her being named Daughter of Arefe, a small town in southern Romania, located near the castle constructed by Vlad in the 15th century.

In Dracula: Sense and Nonsense, she takes on many of the assumptions held by both scholars and the general public. Some of the "nonsense" includes the ideas that Dracula was killed by a stake through his heart, and that he could not go out in the sunlight. These are Hollywood versions of the story, she says, and patently untrue to anyone who has actually read the book.

As she put it, "I have had to force myself to stand back, to extricate myself from any favorite theory or pet peeve. I have donned the garb of the detective, whose primary task is to winnow out the truth, no matter where the search might lead. Each entry begins with a faulty or questionable statement from a published account. Where possible, I trace the source(s) of the error and endeavor to account for its origins, or at least suggest where the perpetrator may have found the inaccurate information Here I rely, where possible, on undisputed evidence such as Bram Stoker's own Working Notes for Dracula, other primary documents, and the novel itself."

Dracula: Sense and Nonsense was published by Desert Island Books.