Vlad le père, Vlad le fils et Stoker l’écrivain
Vlad the father, Vlad the son, and Stoker the writer

Summary/Abstract: One of the seemingly ineradicable false claims surrounding the writing of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula is the assertion that the Wallachian prince Vlad III the Impaler, also known as “Drăculea”, is the historical model for the vampire count. In fact, Stoker knew close to nothing about the man or his actions. The only work that provided him details about the 15th-century ruler of Wallachia, that of William Wilkinson, inextricably mixes father and son, Vlad II “Dracul” and Vlad III “Drăculea”, thus forming one invented person out of the two rulers of Wallachia. The nickname for the son, based on that of the father, becomes, in the eyes of Wilkinson, a sort of honorary title. The few details that Stoker was able to obtain about that very “Dracula” were nothing more than a collection of very general information about this invented person. This little information became the basis for the historical background of the character of Count Dracula, which Stoker then developed from many sources. In the end, only one single element of Wallachian history was included in the novel, but it had to be central: the name “Dracula” itself.

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