Count Dracula is a centuries-old vampire, sorcerer, and Transylvanian nobleman. He claims to be a Székely descended from Attila the Hun and inhabits his decaying castle in the Carpathian Mountains near the Borgo Pass. Unlike the vampires of Eastern European folklore which are portrayed as repulsive, corpse-like creatures, Dracula exudes aristocratic charm to mask true evil. As a youth, Dracula studied the black arts at the academy of Scholomance in the Carpathian Mountains, overlooking the town of Sibiu, and became proficient in alchemy and sorcery. He later joined the military. He transformed into a vampire by using black magic and lived for several centuries in his castle with the Weird Sisters.

In the 19th century, he began to enact his plan for world domination, beginning with England. He summons Jonathan Harker to provide legal support for a real estate transaction overseen by Harker's employer. The Count keeps Harker alive and unaware of his true intentions. Dracula then leaves his castle and boards a Russian ship, the Demeter. During the voyage, he feasts on the ship's crew members. Dracula leaves the ship in the form of a wolf. Soon the Count goes after Harker's fiancée, Mina Murray, and her friend, Lucy Westenra. Also, there is a notable link between Dracula and Renfield, a resident of the asylum who is compelled to consume creatures in ascending order of size to absorb their "life force". He acts as a sort of Dracula detector, sensing the count's proximity.

Dracula begins to visit Lucy on a nightly basis to drain her blood and simultaneously transform her into a vampire. Lucy's companions notice something is wrong and call upon the Dutch doctor Abraham Van Helsing who soon deduces her condition is supernatural in origin. Despite an attempt to use garlic to keep Dracula at bay, he entices Lucy out of her chamber and drains her completely of her blood which kills her. Van Helsing leads a group of men to enter Lucy's crypt and kill her reanimated corpse and then go to Dracula's residence at Carfax Abbey, destroy his boxes of earth, and deprive him of his ability to regenerate his powers. Count Dracula leaves England and returns to Transylvania, but he bites Mina before leaving.

Eventually, Lord Godalming, Van Helsing, Dr. Seward, Jonathan Harker, Mina, and Quincey Morris track the Count back to Transylvania and destroy him by cutting his throat with Jonathan Harker's kukri knife and piercing his heart with Quincey Morris's Bowie knife while his coffin was in transit. However, this is an omission of one of the proper rituals to destroy a vampire such as with a stake to the heart, decapitation, or dismemberment followed by cremation. The lack of proper disposal has suggested that Dracula may rise again.

Irish actor and playwright Hamilton Deane reimagined Dracula as a polished, aristocratic gentleman with refined manners, replacing the novel’s monstrous, xenophobic portrayal with a socially adept figure suited to polite society. The play introduced the iconic high-collared cape—both a theatrical device and a defining visual—that became standard in later adaptations. The narrative was streamlined by removing all scenes outside England, beginning with Dracula already in the country, Jonathan and Mina Harker already married, and Lucy Westenra already dead. The setting was modernized to the 1920s, with Dracula arriving by airplane rather than by ship.

In the 1927 play, Jonathan Harker is no longer responsible for bringing Dracula to England; the Count’s relocation is handled by an unnamed real estate agent, and Harker’s past visit to Transylvania is reduced to an unrelated trip. Dracula’s identity is made explicit: he is directly identified as Vlad the Impaler, a 15th-century voivode, a claim confirmed by Van Helsing and by Dracula himself. Additionally, Renfield survives, rather than being killed by Dracula.

Additionally the revised play for American audiences had the names of female characters swapped. What was Lucy's character is now named Mina Weston and she is also already dead at the beginning of the play. The Mina character is now named Lucy Seward, Dr. Seward's daughter, who falls under Dracula's power but is saved from death at the end of the play.

Dracula's powers include super strength, wall-crawling, hypnosis, mind control, control over nocturnal animals (such as wolves and rats), weather manipulation, shape-shifting, changing his size, transmitting his vampire curse to others, and limited invulnerability. His featured forms of shapeshifting in the novel include that of a bat, rat, wolf, vapor, and fog. He also can only be definitively killed by decapitation followed by impalement through the heart or shooting him with a sacred bullet. He also requires no other sustenance but fresh blood, which has the effect of rejuvenating him. Without it, he physically ages at an accelerated rate. Sunlight also weakens Dracula, but unlike other vampires does not destroy him. He also possesses an aversion to garlic and sacred objects such as a cross. Dracula cannot cross running water or enter a house uninvited.

All published appearances of Dracula from before Janurary 1, )-(95)}} are public domain in the US.

Some notable appearances are listed below:

*Dracula (1897)
* Powers of Darkness - Swedish Version (1899)
* Powers of Darkness - Icelandic Version (1901)
*Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories (1914)

* Dracula, or The Undead (1897)
**Bram Stoker's ''Dracula'' originally appeared as a [https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/bram-stokers-stage-adaptation-of-dracula stage play on May 18, 1897] (which only two people attended). The (much-more famous) novel was released eight days later.
* Dracula - Original Production (1924)
* Dracula - Broadway Version (1927)

* Dracula's Death (1921): An insane asylum inmate who insists he is the immortal Dracula abducts a poor seamstress named Mary Land to his castle and forces her to attend a wedding ceremony. At the end of the ceremony, Mary uses a cross to repel Dracula and escapes the castle. Eventually Mary wakes up back at the asylum, unsure if her ordeal was real or merely a dream. The inmates gather in the asylum's garden, where one of them produces a loaded revolver. Seeking a chance to prove his immortality, Dracula asks the man to shoot him. The bullet hits Dracula's heart, killing him.
* Billy the Kid Versus Dracula (1966): Count Dracula travels to the Old West, where he takes a shine to Billy the Kid's fiancée and tries to turn her into a vampire.
* The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973): While investigating a satanic cult for Scotland Yard, Van Helsing discovers a plan by Dracula to commit global genocide by creating a virulent strain of the bubonic plague.

* Uncle Walt (1964)

*Eerie #12: An adaptation of the original novel's story.
* Kid Eternity #4: Dracula is one of the fictional characters summoned by Kid Eternity.
* Chamber of Chills #22 (2)
* Forbidden Worlds #116, 119
* Herbie #14, 20
* Psycho #24
* Scream #1
* Archie's Madhouse #11, 29: In issue 11 there is a feature called ''How to Improve TV'' both Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster are shown fighting on a horror show playing on the TV. In issue #29, Dracula is shown presenting the witch of the year award on the behalf of the Academy of Monster Awards and having a windup doll sold alongside other classic monsters including the Sea Creature, the Mummy, Frankenstein's Monster, the Invisible Man, King Kong, Crazy Mole Man, and more.

* Sambo's Restaurant (1980)
* Schlage (1987)
* Duracell (1987)
* Bud Light (1985)
* Martin Landau as Dracula Theater Ad (1984)
* Epoch Game Pocket Computer- WGN Channel 9, Chicago (1981)
* Texas Instruments Anylight Solar Calculator (1987)

*In 1899, the Swedish version Mörkrets makter ("Power of Darkness"), serialized in the newspaper Dagen, is an anonymous and radical adaptation of Dracula. Credited to "Bram Stoker and A—e", the Swedish version transforms the vampire into Draculitz, leader of a Darwinian cult that seeks to dominate the world by eliminating the "weak". The plot adds scenes of occult rituals, a seductive vampire (Josephine) and a flawed detective, while reducing supernatural elements (Draculitz does not transform into animals). The text satirizes nascent fascism and anti-Semitism, with allusions to real crimes, such as the Thames Murders.
*In 1901, the Icelandic version Based on the Swedish edition, Makt myrkranna (also "Powers of Darkness") was serialized in the newspaper Fjallkonan and later published as a book by Valdimar Ásmundsson. Shorter and with significant cuts (such as the removal of the epistolary format), the Icelandic version maintains the political tone, but adds references to the Norse sagas. Despite an initial negative reception, it became a cultural classic in Iceland, even influencing Nobel laureate Halldór Laxness.
*When Nosferatu, the unauthorized film adaptation of Dracula, was made in 1922, Count Dracula was replaced by Count Orlok, nosferatu is another word for vampire and even appears in Stoker's novel, is indeed another word for vampire, famously used in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897).
*The films ''The Satanic Rites of Dracula'' & ''Billy the Kid Versus Dracula'' are in the public domain in the United States because it was published in the United States between )-(95)}} and 1977, inclusive, without a proper copyright notice.
*Alucard (the anadrome of "Dracula") is sometimes it a pseudonym used by Dracula. It is also commonly a name used by vampire or dhampir relatives of Dracula such as a son or more distant descendant. However sometimes the character using the name was not directly related to Dracula and instead used as something of a shout-out to arguably the most famous vampire of all time.
*[https://youtu.be/BeFrWxwE2y4?si=qaq0JkdwdUSMMT8s The Dracula commercials] [https://youtu.be/WfWQqJXnqXE?si=ppAx7qHCWaZRsU_i are public domain] [https://youtu.be/PK30_9LragE?si=LjD90Vkbgw79q__- because those were published] [https://youtu.be/Rqio5dJUk8g?si=Poxv1SCj1xLz9YIy in the United States] [https://youtu.be/OQ_qv5Ei86g?si=vEzs1uXm7Nf-SFVi between 1978] [https://youtu.be/byasMgiynVI?si=EbUaEE2O6ryq1qX- and March 1, 1989] [https://youtu.be/wOwh_wPz74I?si=m5bu55fUXm8lrWEP without a copyright notice,] [https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/search?page_number=1&query=%22Sambo%27s%20Restaurants%22&field_type=%22keyword%22&records_per_page=10&sort_field=%22representative_date%22&sort_order=%22asc%22&model=%22%22 and its] [https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/search?page_number=1&query=%22Schlage%22&field_type=%22keyword%22&records_per_page=10&sort_order=%22asc%22&model=%22%22 copyright was not] [https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/search?page_number=1&query=%22Duracell%22&field_type=%22keyword%22&records_per_page=10&sort_order=%22asc%22&model=%22%22 subsequently registered] [https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/search?page_number=1&query=%22Bud%20Light%20%22&field_type=%22keyword%22&records_per_page=100&sort_field=%22representative_date%22&sort_order=%22asc%22&type_of_work=%22motion_picture%22&model=%22%22 with the] [https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/search?page_number=1&query=%22Dracula%22&field_type=%22keyword%22&records_per_page=100&sort_field=%22representative_date%22&sort_order=%22asc%22&type_of_work=%22motion_picture%22&model=%22%22 U.S. Copyright] [https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/search?page_number=1&query=%22Epoch%20%22&field_type=%22keyword%22&records_per_page=100&sort_field=%22representative_date%22&sort_order=%22asc%22&type_of_work=%22motion_picture%22&model=%22%22 Office within] [https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/search?page_number=1&query=%22Texas%20Instruments%22&field_type=%22keyword%22&records_per_page=10&sort_field=%22representative_date%22&sort_order=%22asc%22&type_of_work=%22motion_picture%22&model=%22%22 5 years].

*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracula Wikipedia]
*[https://wiki.jennyeverywhere.net/wiki/Dracula Jenny Everywhere Wiki]
*[https://comicvine.gamespot.com/dracula/4005-65186/issues-cover/ Comic Vine]
*[https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dracula-novel Britannica]
*[https://www.gutenberg.org/files/345/345-h/345-h.htm Project Gutenberg]
*[https://fictional-characters-in-media.fandom.com/wiki/Dracula Fictional Characters in Media Wiki]
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