The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova Quiz

Answer: It is never given.

Interestingly enough, her name is never given in the book. Towards the end, we learn that she was named after her mother's mother, but we are never told Helen's mother's name either.

Answer: Wallachia

Contrary to popular belief, Vlad Dracula was a prince of Wallachia, not Transylvania. Wallachia is now part of Romania.

Dracula apparently lived in Constantinople as a boy/young man (he was sent there to the Sultan by his father as a hostage).

Answer: Holland (the Netherlands) and the U.S.A.

Holland and the U.S. are not destinations specifically visited as part of the search.

Although Paul and his daughter live in Holland, and the daughter goes to her local library to read up on Dracula, they don't travel to Holland specifically to find Dracula.

Same with the U.S.A.: Paul met both Helen and Rossi while at the university in the U.S., and Rossi did take his dragon book to the Smithsonian to have it analyzed and dated, but none of them made a trip to the U.S.A. to track down Dracula.

Rossi visits Hungary to look for Dracula's tomb, and there meets Helen's mother.

Rossi visits Greece as part of his research on "The Ghost in the Amphora" and Greek vampires, or "vrykolakas".

Rossi, and later Helen and Paul, go to Turkey to look for documents about Dracula that remain from Sultan Mehmed II's time.

After Turkey, Helen and Paul to go Romania to interview Helen's mother, who had moved there soon after her encounter with Rossi.

Helen and Paul then go to Bulgaria to find the now-defunct monastery Sveti Georgi, where they believe Dracula's new tomb is located.

Paul, Helen, their daughter, and Barley all visit a monastery in Perpignan, France, which they suspect is one of Dracula's hangouts.

Answer: A gypsy psychic tells her that she is related to Dracula.

At least twice in the book, Paul is struck by the uncanny resemblance of Helen's face to a portrait of Dracula.

We later learn that Rossi traveled to Romania and visited Targoviste, Helen's mother's village, to see Dracula's castle. Rossi was told by a tour guide that a family with the last name Getzi were descendents of Dracula's line. When Rossi meets Helen's mother, an innocent 17-year-old girl, she tells him that her last name is Getzi. She also shows him a tattoo of a dragon on her back, which her father told her is given to one girl in the family in every generation.

Helen and Rossi become lovers, and she becomes pregnant with Helen. Helen is also given the same dragon tattoo.

When Paul and Helen visit Helen's mother, she tells them what she never told Rossi: she had overheard her own father saying that if any treasure was ever found in Dracula's castle, it should rightfully belong to him.

When Helen and Paul are in Istanbul, Helen is confronted by a gypsy who berates her for bringing the curse of the vampire to the city. However, the gypsy never says that Helen is related to Dracula.

Answer: He was given amnesia by Dracula (or one of his minions).

While thinking about Rossi's letters from his second trip to Greece (after Rossi left Helen's mother in Hungary), Paul suddenly remembers that Rossi mentions being in a bar and being served a drink called "Amnesia". In his letters from Greece, Rossi also mentions that the natives keep bothering him with stories about vrykolakas (Greek vampires), when he just wants to be left in peace to look for pottery shards. This appears to be a contradiction of everything Rossi and said and done prior to that point. After all, wasn't Rossi interested in learning about vampires rather than pottery shards?

Then toward the end of the book, when Paul and Helen find Rossi in the tomb, Rossi looks up at Helen and sees the face of her mother. He says he loved her mother, and that he "tried so many times to remember where she was, but something...".

Answer: They are part of an elite corps of vampire fighters.

Turgut and Selim reveal to Paul and Helen that they serve Vlad's arch-enemy, Sultan Mehmed II, even though he has been dead for centuries. They are part of "The Crescent Guard", a secret society within the Janissaries who were created with the purpose of destroying the Order of the Dragon.

Answer: They want to use the secret of eternal life to bring back their dead Communist leaders.

Paul and Helen hypothesize that the government is interested from a purely scientific point of view, and that they do not want Americans to get the credit for the discovery of bringing the dead back to life. Helen also mentions tht the Eastern Bloc has its great leaders embalmed in glass tombs. Paul suddenly has a vivid recollection of seeing Georgi Dimitrov, the dead leader of Buglaria, in his glass tomb. Helen says, "Can you imagine a world in which Stalin could live for 500 years? Or perhaps forever?"

Answer: He wants Rossi to curate and catalogue his private library.

After whisking Rossi off to his underground lair, Dracula tells Rossi that he admires his brilliant mind and wants him to catalogue his extensive private library. Dracula also reveals that the library may have to be moved soon, as its location is in danger of being discovered.

Answer: Three times.

Three is the magic number. One or two vampire bites can make you ill, depending on the strength of the vampire who bit you, but you may still recover. Helen gets bitten once by the little old librarian when he is still relatively weak, so she is relatively unaffected. However, Turgut's bookseller friend Erozan gets bitten once by the same librarian and becomes very ill because the librarian is now stronger. Helen gets bitten a second time (presumably by Dracula himself), but she does not become a vampire, despite her fears.

After Erozan gets bitten three times, Turgut sadly drives a silver dagger through his heart to prevent him from becoming a vampire.

Answer: 5

By my count, there are five: Professor Rossi, Turgut Bora, Paul, Hugh James, and Paul's daughter, who receives one at the end.

Although Dracula tells Rossi that he has printed up and distributed many copies of the book to various historians over the years, we are never told their names and they are not introduced as characters.