Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" was first published in 1897. The British edition appeared in May 1897, issued by Archibald Constable and Company in London. It was printed with a yellow cloth cover and red lettering, and originally sold for six shillings.
The novel was published after several years of research and drafting. Stoker assembled more than 100 pages of notes and drew on travel writing, folklore, vampire traditions, and accounts of Eastern Europe. His surviving notes show that the story changed substantially before publication, including an earlier plan to set it in Styria rather than Transylvania.
Readers sometimes confuse the first publication date with later milestones. An American edition followed in 1899, while a cheaper British paperback version appeared in 1901. The date 1901 therefore belongs to a later edition, not the novel's debut. Dracula eventually became one of the defining works of Gothic and vampire fiction, although it did not initially make Stoker wealthy or famous.