Published at the height of the imperial enterprise, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) has a long and intricate backstory. It is, in fact, the result of centuries of British discovery of and disappointment with the world. One by one, naturalists, amateur anthropologists, merchants, soldiers, diplomats or missionaries from the British Isles discovered the world for the armchair travelers at home and built up their self-esteem by disfiguring countries and regions in writings, paintings, and lectures at the Royal Geographical Society.