 Drawing on past works such as The Vampyre and " Carmilla " , Stoker began to research his new book in the late 19th century , reading works such as The Land Beyond the Forest ( 1888 ) by Emily Gerard and other books about Transylvania and vampires . In London , a colleague mentioned to him the story of Vlad Ţepeş , the " real @-@ life Dracula , " and Stoker immediately incorporated this story into his book . The first chapter of the book was omitted when it was published in 1897 , but it was released in 1914 as Dracula 's Guest . 
