He was a Romanian-born historian, professor and philanthropist who intrigued American popular culture by writing a book linking the fictional Count Dracula to the 15th-century Romanian prince Vlad the Impaler.

Radu Florescu died Sunday at age 88 in Mougins, France, from complications connected to pneumonia, his son John Florescu told The Associated Press on Monday.

Florescu wrote a dozen books but was most famous for "In Search of Dracula," which he co-authored with Raymond T. McNally in 1972. In it, he asserted that Irish author Bram Stoker based the Dracula character in his 1897 novel on Vlad the Impaler. Florescu's work was translated into 15 languages and the pair went on to write five more books on Dracula.