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Dracula
Bram Stoker, 1897
448 pp.

In Brief
A horror romance as deathless as any vampire, this blood-curdling tale carries readers from mystery-shrouded Transylvania to 19th-century London in the frantic hunt for the blood-sucking Count Dracula.

Bram Stoker's classic vampire story has haunted and disturbed the modern imagination for a hundred years. Blood, information, and hypnotic energy circulate furiously among the characters until the tale reaches its violent climax. This new edition has an Introduction and Bibliography which draw on the latest scholarship, and detailed Notes which explain literary, geographical, and technological allusions the novel.. (From the publisher.)

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About the Author

• Birth—November 8, 1847
• Where—Dublin, Ireland, UK
• Died—April 20, 1912
• Where—London, England
• Education—Trinity College, Dublin (in mathematics)


Abraham "Bram" Stoker was an Irish writer of novels and short stories, who is best known today for his 1897 horror novel Dracula. During his lifetime, he was better known for being the personal assistant of the actor Henry Irving and the business manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London, which Irving owned.He was born in 1847 at 15 Marino Crescent— then as now called "The Crescent"—today in Fairview, Dublin, Ireland. His parents were Abraham Stoker and the feminist Charlotte Mathilda Blake Thornely. Stoker was the third of seven children. Abraham and Charlotte were members of the Clontarf Church of Ireland parish and attended the parish church (St. John the Baptist located on Seafield Road West) with their children, who were both baptised there.

Stoker was bed-ridden until he started school at the age of seven — when he made a complete recovery. Of this time, Stoker wrote, "I was naturally thoughtful, and the leisure of long illness gave opportunity for many thoughts which were fruitful according to their kind in later years."

After his recovery, he became a normal young man, even excelling as an athlete (he was named University Athlete) at Trinity College, Dublin (1864 – 1870), from which he graduated with honours in mathematics. He was auditor of the College Historical Society and president of the University Philosophical Society, where his first paper was on "Sensationalism in Fiction and Society

In 1878 Stoker married Florence Balcombe, a celebrated beauty whose former suitor was Oscar Wilde. The couple moved to London, where Stoker became business manager (at first as acting-manager) of Irving's Lyceum Theatre, a post he held for 27 years. On 31st December 1879, Bram and Florence's only child was born, a son that they christened Irving Noel Thornley Stoker. The collaboration with Irving was very important for Stoker and through him he became involved in London's high society, where he met, among other notables, James McNeil Whistler, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the course of Irving's tours, Stoker got the chance to travel around the world. In the mid 1890s, Stoker is rumored to have become a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, though there is no concrete evidence to support this claim. The Golden Dawn was a fraternal magical order that also included among its members author W.B.Yeats, occultist Aleister Crowley, author and co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck, Arthur Edward Waite, London stage actress and musician Florence Farr and others. Although there is no evidence that Stoker was actually a member of the order, one of his closest friends was J.W. Brodie-Innis, a major figure in the Order, and Stoker himself hired Pamela Coleman-Smith, the artist who created the Rider-Waite Tarot deck, a major instrument in the Order, as an artist at the Lyceum Theater.

Stoker supplemented his income by writing novels; the best known being the vampire tale Dracula which was published in 1897. Before writing Dracula, Stoker spent eight years researching European folklore and stories of vampires. Dracula is an epistolary novel, written as collection of diary entries, telegrams, and letters from the characters, as well as fictional clippings from the Whitby and London newspapers. Stoker's inspirations for the story were a visit to Slains Castle in Aberdeenshire, and a visit to the crypts under the church St. John the Baptist where Stoker was baptised.

Bram Stoker died in 1912, and was cremated and his ashes placed in a display urn at Golders Green Crematorium. After Irving Noel Stoker's death in 1961, his ashes were added to that urn. The original plan had been to keep his parents' ashes together, but after Florence Stoker's death her ashes were scattered at the Gardens of Rest.

The short story collection Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories was published in 1914 by Stoker's widow Florence Stoker. The first film adaptation of Dracula was named Nosferatu. It was directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and starred Max Schreck as Count Orlock. Nosferatu was produced while Florence Stoker, Bram Stoker's widow and literary executrix, was still alive. Represented by the attorneys of the British Incorporated Society of Authors, she eventually sued the filmmakers. Her chief legal complaint was that she had been neither asked for permission for the adaptation nor paid any royalty. The case dragged on for some years, with Mrs. Stoker demanding the destruction of the negative and all prints of the film. The suit was finally resolved in the widow's favour in July 1925. Some copies of the film survived, however and the film has become well known. (From Wikipedia.)

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Readers Say. . .
(Older books have no online reviews from mainstream press. In such cases we turn to thoughtful reviews from both Amazon and Barnes & Noble customers.)

"For the dead travel fast" : Surprisingly "Denn die Toten reiten schnell" or "For the dead travel fast" is more than an opening line to this tale of love in the dangerous moon light. After watching several Drac movies and a few Nosferatu's, I pretty much though I had a handle on the genera. Little did I know what a wonderful world of mystery and suspense that Bram Stoker opened up for me.

The story is told mostly third party though the papers, diaries, and phonograph recordings (on wax calendars) of those people involve in a tale so bizarre that it almost defies belief. The general story line is that of a Count that plans to move to a more urban setting (from Borgo Pass to London) where there is a richer diet. There he finds succulent women; something he can sing his teeth in. Unfortunately for him a gang of ruffians (including a real-estate agent, asylum director, Texas cowboy and an Old Dutch abnormal psychologist) is out to detour his nocturnal munching. They think they have Drac on the run but with a wing and a prayer he is always one step ahead.

Of more value to the reader is the rich prose chosen by Stoker as he describes the morals and technology of the time. We have to come to grips with or decide if we can perform the rituals that are required to eliminate vampires verses the impropriety of opening graves and staking loved ones. The powers in the book differ from the movie versions in that they are more of persuasion and capabilities to manipulate the local weather. At one point the Dutch Dr. Van Helsing, is so overwhelmed by a beautiful vampire laying in the grave that he almost for gets why he is there and may become vamp chow.

All in all the story is more in the cunning chase. And the question as to will they succeed or will Dracula triumph. Remember "For the dead travel fast."
AMZ Reviewer - B. Chandler "xyzzy," Texas, 8/23/07



"This night our feet must tread in thorny paths..." : Written in 1897, Stoker's Dracula is a classic of British fiction, fascinating for its subject matter and still the subject of films a hundred years later. Count Dracula, the epitome of evil, is exotic enough to keep even the most jaded reader of his exploits interested in their outcome, and grounded enough in the reality of evil to make even doubters wonder whether evil can be transmitted from one person to another against one's will.

The novel begins with the arrival of Jonathan Harker, a lawyer representing a London real estate agency, at the Transylvanian castle of Count Dracula to clinch the deal by which the count will move to a British estate. Details about Harker's arrival by coach, his greeting at the castle, which has no doors except the front door, his reception by the count (who has hair on the palms of his hands), and his instructions regarding where he may go or not go within the castle set the tone and establish the mysterious background of the count and a sense of dread regarding the outcome for Harker.

By the time that Harker recovers from a long and mysterious illness and returns home, the count, already in London, has turned Lucy, a lovely ingenue, into a vampire. Dr. Van Helsing, a German expert on vampires hired by her family, saves her several times from what appears to be severe anemia and recommends ringing her room with garlic and making sure that she has crucifixes around her. When Dracula then turns his blood-thirsty attention to Mina, fiancée of Jonathan Harker and friend of the unfortunate Lucy, the scene is set for a showdown regarding Dracula's power vs. the power of goodness and traditional religion.

Stoker takes his story beyond sheer melodrama, eliciting sympathy for the afflicted victims of Dracula while also recreating the religious atmosphere of the period and the beliefs and doubts of average citizens. The novel is far more compelling than I expected, creating suspense at the same time that it develops the character of the count with his supernatural powers. The climax in which the forces of good are ranged against the forces of evil in the shape of the count, whose long history is detailed in the novel, is truly a conflict between traditional religion and evil in the form of Satan personified. Fun to read and surprisingly affecting.
AMZ Reviewer - Mary Whipple, New England, 2/9/07



Anemic Tale in Need of Transfusion : While admittedly this is the work that brought the love of vampires to life in the modern era, Stoker's Dracula has not withstood the test of time too well. One should always be wary when a full legnth novel is written in the format of epistles, that is in the form of letters or diarys, as this lends itself to tedium the more it passes beyond 100 pages or so. H. G. Wells was successful in doing this with 'The Island of Doctor Moreau' because it was little more than a novelette. Not so with 'Dracula'. After the first chapter and a half it drags. Adding insult to injury is that Van Helsing's wording is often arcane and outdated that becomes a great detractor of the tale itself. At other times over melodramatic scenes become almost laughable, especially when Mina declares herself as 'unclean' ... oh how this would have could have been fodder for a modern day comedy. In the end, reading this became a chore made all the more difficult by its acceptance by many as a classic. This is an anemic tale in desperate need of a blood transfusion.
B&N Reviewer - a reader, 11/5/06

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Book Club Discussion Questions

1. Dracula relies on journal fragments, letters, and newspaper clippings to tell its story. Why might Stoker have chosen to narrate the story in this way? Do letters and journal entries make the story seem more authentic or believable to you? Likewise, discuss the significance that many of the male protagonists are doctors (Dr. Seward) or men of science (Dr. Van Helsing). Why is this important to the story?

2. How does the novel invert Christian mythology in its description of Count Dracula's reign of terror? For instance, what specific elements of Stoker's story parallel scenes or images from the New Testament? Why might this subversion of Christian myth be significant?

3. Discuss the roles of Lucy Westenra and Mina Harker in the novel. How are the two women similar? Different? What accounts for their differences? To what extent does the novel depend on both of these women to propel the narrative forward?

4. Discuss the role of sexuality in Dracula. Would you say that Dracula attempts to reproduce himself sexually or by some other means? In what ways does the figure of Dracula subvert conventional notions of heterosexuality? Consider, for instance, his predilection for drinking blood and his habit of making his victims feed from his chest.

5. What are the elements of vampire folklore? For example, what, according to the novel, attracts or repels a vampire? How do you kill a vampire for good? Although Stoker did not invent the mythology of the vampire, his novel firmly established the conventions of vampire fiction. Choose another novel that deals with vampires and compare it with Dracula. (Consider, for example, one of Anne Rice's vampirebooks.) In what ways are the novels similar? Different?

6. Consider Freud's essay "The Uncanny" in relation to Stoker's Dracula. How would Freud describe the world that Stoker evokes in the novel? Is this a world of common reality? Or is it a world governed by supernatural belief? Or both? Discuss Freud's claim that the writer of gothic fiction is "betraying to us the superstitiousness which we have ostensibly surmounted; he deceives us by promising to give us the sober truth, and then after all overstepping it." In what ways does Stoker's narrative strategy of employing newspaper clippings and journal entries promise the "sober truth"? To what extent do you think Dracula achieves a sense of the uncanny?
(Questions issued by Random House, Modern Library edition— cover image, top right )