DID Bram Stoker base the physical description of Count Dracula on Vlad the Impaler?

Okay, first off, it’s a pet peeve of mine that people refer to him as “Vlad the Impaler.” His name was DRACULA. That’s what he would have referred to himself as, and been referred to as. Tepes, or “Impaler,” was just a nickname, and may have been intended as pejorative. Secondarily, yes, I am aware that there are other vampires in the world than just Dracula, but bear with me. This is a Dracula-heavy news week. And, c’mon, doesn’t he deserve all the attention?

So, in discussing the degree to which Bram Stoker based his literary creation on the real man, some have claimed the connections are spurious. I won’t argue otherwise. But take a look at the painting of Vlad Dracula. Here is the physical description given by Stoker for the Count: “His face was a strong, a very strong, aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils, with lofty domed forehead…His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking . . . The chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin.” You gotta admit, the description matches the portrait to a T, dunnit?