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The Historian is a 2005 novel by Elizabeth Kostova about a quest, reaching through the past five centuries, for the historical Dracula. The novel, Kostova's first, appeared on the New York Times bestseller list during the summer and fall of 2005 and it was named the 2006 Book Sense "Book of the Year" in the Adult Fiction category. It's been published in 28 languages. "This book is undoubtedly the most suspenseful book I have ever read and I will soon read it again. Kostova's unique way of narrating is intricate in its own way." says Kristelle Baysa of the New York Times.

While nominally a modern re-telling of the Dracula story, The Historian delves deeply into the nature of history and its relevance to today's world, as well as serving as a cautionary tale on the historical antagonism between Western Civilization and Islam.The novel is presented as 1st-person account written in the year 2005. The narrator (Familia named after her grandmother) is a historian whose father, Paul, unwittingly ended up searching for the vampiric Vlad Ţepeş. Although the narrator's adventures begin in 1972, there are three distinct storylines narrated in parallel, alternating chapters:

* The narrator's actions in 1972/1973 when at the age of sixteen, she began to travel with her father through parts of Europe and, later, from Amsterdam to Southern France with an undergraduate from Oxford, Stephen Barley.
* Paul's travels during the 1950s, when as a graduate student, he travelled (initially) to Istanbul then to Budapest and then parts of Eastern Europe in search of his mentor, Professor Bartholomew Rossi, who may or may not have been kidnapped.
* Professor Rossi's own travels in Eastern Europe during 1930.

All of the story is told through letters, excerpts from books and academic literature, and above all, the narrator's reconstructions of stories told to her by her father. Details of the plot and of Dracula's nature, motives, and history are slowly revealed.

The book has numerous settings all across Europe, many of which are complicated by Cold War tensions after World War II, the period when much of the action occurs.The story begins with the narrator first discovering a very old, vellum-bound book with a wood carving print of a dragon in the center of the book as well as several old letters that are all addressed to '"my dear and unfortunate successor"' in her father's library in their home in 1972 Amsterdam.

When the narrator confronts her father about these odd items, he begins to tell her about how he came to find the unique blank book with the solitary dragon in his study carrel in the library while he was doing graduate work at a university in America. When he was unable to discover whom the book belonged to, he took it to his mentor, Bartholomew Rossi, and was shocked to find that Rossi himself had also found one of the books when he had been a graduate student in much the same manner that Paul had found his own book. Upon discovering that Paul has also received an identical book, he began to tell Paul of the research that the book had sparked in him, curious to discover how this book could be connected to Vlad the Impaler, also known as Vlad Dracula, the cruel ruler of Wallachia. He had traveled to Istanbul, doing research and the appearance of curious characters and unexplained events cause him to drop the subject and return to his graduate work in Greece, forgetting the legend of Dracula because of the odd events that had occurred. Rossi takes from the same shelf where he had kept the book a stack of letters and gives them to Paul, telling him to read them so that he can better understand what he had learned of the Dracula legend.

Once Paul learned of his advisor's own experiences, he leaves, meaning to consider what he has just learned. When he returns to campus the next day, he learns that Professor Rossi has disappeared, leaving a smear of blood on the desk and on the ceiling. Paul, certain that something must have happened to his advisor, begins to delve into research of Dracula. During his research one day, he meets a young, dark haired woman reading a copy of Bram Stoker's 'Dracula'. Believing that she might be able to help him in his research and surprised at the coincidence that someone could be doing research on the same topic as him, he tries to strike up a conversation with her, but she seems uninterested and leaves quickly. Later, when Paul goes to the card catalog to do more research on Vlad Dracula, he discovers that someone has taken all of the cards for every book even relating to Dracula, including Stoker's novel. Convinced that the dark haired girl might have been responsible, he goes to the front counter to find out who might have checked out the only copy of Dracula. After discovering her name, Helen Rossi, he arranges to meet with her and convinces her that someone might be trying to stop them from doing research on Dracula. Although she seems unconvinced, she does admit that she is the daughter of Bartholomew Rossi, and she is trying to out-do her father. She does not seem to want to have anything to do with him other than to one-up him in the academic world. She has not even approached him since enrolling in the university after arriving from Budapest. When Paul tells her that he has several letters of Rossi's regarding his Dracula research, she agrees to meet him in a church so they can both look at the papers Rossi left with him.

After several other events, they decide that Rossi might have been taken by Dracula to Istanbul. They embark on a trip to Istanbul immediately and there they met a professor, Turgut Bora from Istanbul University who specialized in Shakespearean literature while out to dinner on their first night in Istanbul. While conversing with him, they discover that Turgut was very interested in the history of Dracula because of an odd book that he had found many years before that had a single woodcutting of a dragon and a single inscription of "Dracula". He also has access to the archives of Sultan Mehmed II, which is exactly what Helen and Paul had been looking for during their walk through Istanbul. They agree to meet the next morning and he promises to lead them to the archives.

From Istanbul, Paul and Helen then travel to Budapest, Hungary where they meet with Helen's aunt who works in the Hungarian government. During a lecture that he gives at Budapest University, Paul meets another recipient of another "Dracula" dragon book, Professor Hugh James. During this part of their search, they travel to see Helen's mother, hoping there is some information that she can give them about Rossi's activity when they'd met in the 1930s.

During her father's story, they travel to Oxford for a week of lectures and meetings. When she wakes up one morning, the narrator searches her father's room and finds letters written to her, explaining all of her father's, and Rossi's, mysterious story leaving off the story that he had been telling. These letters ultimately lead her to a monastery in Pyrénées-Orientales, in the south of France.

On her way there she reads letters of her father's travels through Eastern Europe while looking for Rossi with the help of Helen. He eventually found Rossi, and had to drive a silver dagger through his heart to prevent his full transformation into a vampire. Helen (gradually revealed to be the narrator's mother) is also in danger of becoming undead, as throughout the journey she is injected with vampiric venom twice (of the three required to become a vampire).

The accounts written by Paul and Rossi reveal many events, developments and revelations. To name the most relevant:

* The narrator, through her mother, is a direct descendant of Vlad Ţepeş.
* Helen is Rossi's illegitimate daughter; he was drugged with a drink called "amnesia" to forget about his fiancée (Helen's mother) who was a peasant he met in his travels in his younger days.
* The Order of the Dragon still exists, populated by Dracula's minions. However, it is countered by a group of elite Muslim Turks based in Istanbul, founded by Mehmed II, and dedicated to (permanently) killing Dracula.
* Dracula's tomb and library was constantly moved around in the years following his natural death, making it extremely difficult to trace.
* Upon his death, Dracula was supposedly beheaded.
* Scholars around Europe regularly find copies of a mysteriously-printed book almost completely full of blank pages, decorated on the center page with a woodcut of a dragon, which entices them to research Dracula. However, whenever a person delves too deep into these studies, either they or a loved one suffer a tragedy, which serves as their one and only warning.
* Helen disappeared a few months after the narrator's birth after showing symptoms of depression and the desire to avenge her father's death. She feels tainted and not worthy of raising her daughter. While the three of them, Helen, Paul and Paul's daughter, are visiting the monastery in Pyrénées-Orientales, in the south of France, Helen witnesses Dracula in front of her and she jumps off the cliff because she heard voices claiming that she could never overcome Dracula, and that this was his world. Helen awakes and discovers she is alive and takes off in search of him. For the next ten years she searches for Dracula while loving Paul and their daughter from afar. This leads to the three of them meeting up again in the monastery in Pyrénées-Orientales.

When the narrator arrives at the monastery, she finds her father by a tomb there. In an ensuing struggle, individuals mentioned throughout the story mysteriously converge in a final attempt to defeat Dracula, which results in the death of Hugh James, and the supposed death of Dracula from a silver bullet fired directly into his heart by Helen, who finally returns to Paul and the narrator.

Back into the present (when the narrator is fully grown), it is revealed that nine years after Helen and her family were reunited and killed Dracula, Helen dies of a wasting disease. A few years later, Paul dies from a land mine. The narrator is visiting a conference of Dracula scholars to discuss his life, when she stops in at an exhibit in a nearby museum about Dracula. She accidentally leaves her notes in the museum, and the attendant rushes out and returns to her her notes, as well as another one of the books with the Dragon in the middle, revealing that either Dracula or one of his minions with access to Dracula's library is still alive and continuing the legacy.

The book concludes with the narrator day dreaming about what Dracula's last visit to Snagov Monastery must have been like, with Dracula talking to the Abbot about his intention to live on after death.