Will Noble 
 
 London Library Discovers Bram Stoker's Dracula Notes Scribbled In Margins Of Its Books 
 
 Christopher Lee appears as Dracula in the eponymous film form 1958 
 
 It's a crime that libraries consider the most heinous of all. The unhinged playwright Joe Orton even went to jail for it. There is no excuse for defacing books. Except that the London Library in Mayfair is now rather pleased that one of its former members appears to have done just that. His name? Bram Stoker. The book he was researching? Dracula. 
 
 Research at the library — headed by Development Director Philip Spedding — has discovered 28 books on its shelves that were likely used by Stoker to research his seminal gothic horror novel, published in 1897. 
 
 Bram Stoker's London Library subscription 
 
 An Irish businessman living in Chelsea, Stoker joined the London Library in 1890. He was proposed by Hall Caine, the man Dracula is dedicated to. 
 
 While Stoker's name may be revered in the literary world, in fact he wasn't a natural talent when it came to pen and paper. "Stoker was a dreadful writer. His other stuff is dreadful," says Spedding. Dracula was to become the exception to the rule. 
 
 Book stacks at the London Library 
 
 Among the books that Stoker is thought to have borrowed while researching Dracula, is The Book of Werewolves, an egregious tome by Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould. The library's copy is littered with pencil marks closely correlating with a transcription of Stoker's Dracula notes, published by Robert Eighteen-Bisang. 
 
 The more Spedding explored the library's book stacks, the more he discovered crosses, lines and page turn-downs, consistent with Eighteen-Bisang's book. 
 
 Stoker never visited Transylvania, instead using contemporary travel books to form the backdrop for Dracula 
 
 Did Stoker write 'Bosh' in the margin here? 
 
 Elsewhere, Stoker appears to have noted lines describing death and the paranormal. In one book, which mentions the human instinct to "extinguish life", there is a note which possibly reads: "bosh". It's then been scribbled out. The research would have been easier, Spedding admits, had Stoker's handwriting not been so appalling. 
 
 Stoker never actually visited Transylvania, instead using contemporary travel guides to form the opening backdrop of Dracula's mountain castle. On page 17 of another of the library's books — An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia — the corner has been turned over. On the same page, the word 'Dracula' appears. Spooky coincidence? Probably not; copies of books known to have belonged to Stoker have been treated with equal disregard by the writer. Not all his books may have been page-turners — but he was guilty of being a page-turner himself. 
 
 Note the page corner turned down, on the same page that 'Dracula' is mentioned 
 
 One of the strange books that Stoker probably borrowed from the library 
 
 So what does Spedding make of Dracula as a novel? "It's a perfectly acceptable book," he says dryly, adding that Stoker's real genius was to tie in mythology with reality, to create something believable. It's easy to forget that Stoker used cutting edge technology — such as the phonograph — in Dracula, to heighten the realism. 
 
 Dracula is indisputably his best novel; in the time it took him to write it — between 1890 and 1897 — Stoker rattled off another three (bad) novels. Something in the writer urged him to put in the heavy duty research and keep plugging away. 
 
 Philip Spedding, with a selection of the books he discovered to have Bram Stoker's pencil notes inside 
 
 Vampires, werewolves and the like were a common subject in Stoker's day — but for whatever reason, it was Dracula which channeled all this into the quintessential book. So what is it about Dracula that's so endearing to us, almost 130 years after its publication? For Spedding, it's that Stoker's blood-sucking character is infinitely reinterpret-able from generation to generation. "Hotel Transylvania 3 came out this year. It did $500m business," says Spedding. 
 
 Indeed, from Christopher Lee's 1950s Dracula, to the 1972 blaxploitation film Blacula, to recent kids' movies, Stoker's creation continues to stalk us all. 
 
 We can't be 100% sure that these are Stoker's notes — the library has never kept borrowing records — but the coincidences are uncanny. In 1897, Stoker wrote a letter to his bankers, Coutts, ordering them to stop paying the London Library, as he was leaving. This coincides with the date he published Dracula. His work here was done. 
 
 A play of Dracula will be performed at the London Library in February 2019. It will likely play out in the very spaces in which one of the great figures of literature was born. 

 The London Library says it has located a number of the actual books used by Bram Stoker in researching his novel Dracula.... 
 
 The London Library says it has located a number of the actual books used by Bram Stoker in researching his novel Dracula. 
 
 Stoker's own notebooks list a wide range of the author's sources for Dracula, including hundreds of references to individual lines and phrases in books that he considered relevant. A recent trawl of the London Library's bookshelves has revealed that the Library has original copies of 26 of these books, and many of them carry detailed markings that closely match Stoker's notebook references - whether crosses and underlinings against relevant paragraphs, or page turnings on key pages, or other notations - and which the library believes were made by Stoker himself. 
 
 The library has academic support for its claims, with Nick Groom, professor of English Literature at the university of Exeter, confirming that having examined the books he has "no doubt" that Stoker used these exact volumes. 
 
 Stoker was a member of the historical members' lending library, based in London's St James' Square, for seven years during the relevant period of his work - from 1890 up until 1897, the date of Dracula's publication. Some of the most heavily marked books include Sabine Baring-Gould’s Book of Were-Wolves, and Thomas Browne’s Necromancy - Divination of the Dead, while the range includes A F Crosse’s Round About the Carpathians and Charles’ Boner’s Transylvania. 
 
 Philip Spedding, the library’s development director, and the man who uncovered the books' annotations, commented: “Bram Stoker was a member of The London Library but until now we have had no indication whether or how he used our collection. Today’s discovery changes that and we can establish beyond reasonable doubt that numerous books still on our shelves are the very copies that he was using to help write and research his masterpiece.” 
 
 London Library director Philip Marshall noted: “Bram Stoker followed the same path that many writers have pursued before and since - using the Library to transition into a serious writing career, and drawing heavily on the Library’s collection to seek inspiration and ideas for his masterpiece. With the Library’s incredible list of members past and present, some of the most famous characters in fiction must have been developed here – with today’s discovery we can feel sure that Dracula was one of them. We hope that many aspiring writers will follow Bram Stoker’s example and use The London Library as a source of inspiration and support when creating their own masterpieces.”
– Back in the 1890s, somebody spent a lot of time in the London Library reading about werewolves and the supernatural. This person also committed a cardinal sin of library goers—he defaced the books with his own notes in the margins and folded down the corners of pages. But as the Londonist reports, the library is willing to forgive and forget in this case because they say the offender turns out to be none other than Bram Stoker, author of Dracula. In a nifty bit of sleuthing, the library says it has found 26 volumes in its collection used by Stoker for his vampire research—meaning the actual books he used, not just the titles. For example, in one of the books, An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, Stoker folded the corner of page 17 and wrote "Dracula" in the margin. He apparently used the travel book to help describe his character's castle. "We can establish beyond reasonable doubt that numerous books still on our shelves are the very copies that he was using to help write and research his masterpiece," says a library official, per the Bookseller. To figure all this out, a professor at Exeter University went through Stoker's previously published notes and outlines for the book. Then he cross-referenced those notes with old volumes still in the library—the Irish Stoker lived in London and had been member at the time—and discovered the defaced books. One of them is The Book of Werewolves, and the scribbles in the margin notes closely gibe with details eventually used by Stoker in his own iconic book. "I am in no doubt that Bram Stoker used these very copies for Dracula," says professor Nick Groom. (You can visit the castle, but you might have to fend off bears.)