Twenty-first century vampires are the brooding, sparkly anti-heroes of Twilight and Ann Rice— all pointy teeth and hair-product. But they used to be much weirder, scarier and sexier than that. Bram Stoker’s world-changing 1897 novel Dracula is one of the most erotic and thrilling novels in English literature—despite having the most boring opening pages—and it’s crammed with secrets, including the fact that Dracula had a long white mustache, and he made the beds and did the cooking at his at his ultra-scary castle in Transylvania. Stoker himself was a brilliant dancer, a champion fast-walker and a theatrical impresario who was married to—wait for it—Oscar Wilde’s ex-girlfriend.

So whatever you’re imagining, we promise you, you’re not ready for this. Join Jonty and Sophie as they dig up the story behind the story of Dracula, which includes Jack the Ripper, Wilde’s trials for homosexuality, Kodak cameras, immigration, industrialization, decapitation, Macbeth, gobs of sex, King James’s Demonologie and a serious case of Victorian-era trainspotting.

Oh, and vampires caused World War I. You’ve been warned!

Content warning: some references to emotional and physical abuse, mental illness and suicide.

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Further Reading:

• Bram Stoker, Dracula, Penguin Classics, (2011)
• David J. Skal, Something in the Blood: The Untold Story of Bram Stoker, the Man Who Wrote Dracula (Liveright, 2016)
• Elizabeth Miller & Dacre Stoker, The Lost Journal of Bram Stoker: The Dublin Years (Hellbound Books 2024)
• Philip Ball, The Modern Myths, Adventures in the Machinery of the Popular Imagination (Chicago UP 2021).
• Luckhurst R, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Dracula. Cambridge University Press; 2017.

Support the show

Producer: Boyd Britton
Digital Content Coordinator: Olivia di Costanzo
Designer: Peita Jackson
Our thanks to the University of Sydney Business School.