Dracula is an 1897 Gothic horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. The story of the notorious vampire Count Dracula, lord of the undead, who rises from his coffin at night to suck the blood of the living is, undoubtedly, the stuff of nightmares. A lunatic asylum, a bleak Transylvanian castle, an ancient cemetary; these are the dark backgrounds to the even darker deeds portrayed in this most bloodcurdling of tales.