Transylvania and literature as a land of mystery and magic. For example, in Paulo Coelho's novel "The Witch of Portobello", the main character, Sherine Khalil, is described as a Transylvanian orphan with a Romani mother, in an effort to add to the character's exotic mystique. The so-called Transylvanian trilogy of historical novels by Miklos Banffy, "The Writing on the Wall", is an extended treatment of the 19th- and early 20th-century social and political history of the country. Among the first actors to portray Dracula in film was Bela Lugosi, who was born in Banat, in present-day Romania. Transylvania Transylvania is a
Transylvania Colony Transylvania Colony The Transylvania Colony, also referred to as the Transylvania Purchase, was a short-lived, extra-legal colony founded during 1775 by land speculator Richard Henderson, who controlled the North Carolina-based Transylvania Company. Henderson and his investors had reached an agreement to purchase a vast tract of Cherokee lands west of the southern and central Appalachian Mountains through the acceptance of Treaty of Sycamore Shoals with most leading Cherokee chieftains then controlling these lands. To further complicate matters, this early American frontier land was also claimed at the same time by both the Province of Virginia (particularly following Lord Dunmore's War)