When Radu Florescu and Raymond T. McNally went In Search of Dracula (1972), those two intrepid adventurers (somewhat unsurprisingly) chased the Count to Transylvania, but not to Dublin, Sligo, Monaghan or Derry. One of the things that everyone ‘knows’ about the titular character of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel is that he was based on Vlad Ţepeş (or ‘Vlad the Impaler’), the fifteenth century Wallachian Voivode – even though the extent of the connection between them is an extremely contested one in scholarship on the text. In her rip-roaring treatment of what she calls ‘sense and nonsense’ in Dracula Studies, Elizabeth Miller complains: ‘Count Dracula and Vlad the Impaler. Never has so much been written by so many about so little’ (149).

Romania has had an ambivalent relationship with Count Dracula for decades. While it makes good economic sense to draw attention to the country's link to one of the most famous literary characters ever created and entice a steady stream of tourists down the trail to Bran Castle, the ‘original’ Castle Dracula (Huebner), the pop culture transformation of a national hero into a bloodthirsty, Satanic vampire has understandably been the cause of some resentment as well. That there was a direct line from Vlad to Dracula was a critical assumption for a long time, though the revelation that the most famous vampire name of them all was a relatively late addition to his plans has rather undermined the notion that Stoker was inspired by the historical figure.