Bram Stoker' s 1897 novel Dracula portrayed vampires -- the undead who roam at night to suck the blood of living people -- as able to turn into bats  As a result of the pervasive influence of this novel, many people now assume that a vampire' s being able to turn into a bat is an essential part of vampire myths
However, this assumption is false, for vampire myths existed in Europe long before Stoker' s book
At the time he wrote Dracula, Stoker was familiar with earlier European vampire myths.