SOURCE: Bierman, Joseph S. “Dracula: Prolonged Childhood Illness and the Oral Triad.” In The Critical Response to Bram Stoker, edited by Carol A. Senf, pp. 46-51. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993.

In the following essay, originally published in 1972, Bierman finds parallels between Stoker's Dracula and two of the author's short stories: “How 7 Went Mad” and “The Wondrous Child.”

In the early summer of 1895, Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula had a nightmare which he attributed to eating too much dressed crab at supper one night. He dreamed about a vampire king rising from the tomb to go about his ghastly business (Ludlam, 1962). Inspired by this dream, he set to work writing the novel, Dracula. By the fall of 1895, he was writing his first draft. Since it first appeared in London in 1897, Dracula has not been out of print. I would like to present one key answer, summarized from a...