Everyone has heard the name Dracula and how it is associated with one of the greatest vampire figures of all time. The author Bram Stoker wrote the original gothic novel in 1897. He was the business manager for the Lyceum Theatre in London. The book received excellent reviews but it was not an instant bestseller. Eventually it would inspire countless novels and films and make the vampire myth a permanent fixture in pop culture. Of the many film adaptations of the book, few have kept the original plot intact or captured the novel’s foreboding horror fully.
The novel takes place at the end of the 1800s in a matter of months. The entire story is related in newspaper articles, letters, and ship’s log and diary entries. Jonathan Harker is sent to Count Dracula’s castle in Romania to settle the purchase of land in England. He is soon made a prisoner in the castle and is preyed upon by the Count’s three vampire wives. Dracula then makes his way to England upon the Russian ship Demeter feasting on the crew for his nourishment. The ship crashes ashore in England where Jonathan’s fiancé Mina and her best friend Lucy encounter the wreckage of the ship. The Count takes control of his land and slowly begins draining Lucy’s blood turning her into a member of the undead. Jonathan finally escapes from his imprisonment returns to England and joins a Doctor Van Helsing in the hunt for the Romanian vampire. Mina eventually also becomes one of the vampire’s victims as they confront the Count. What ensues is an exciting game of cat and mouse as Dracula is hunted leading to a grand cliffhanging fight to the death back in Romania.
Stoker is highly inventive in his use of letter/diary entries in the story’s narrative. The pace at first is slow and foreboding but gradually this picks up as the Count’s schemes come into light and he is hunted. Mina is a strong heroine and the character of Van Helsing is a worthy adversary to the century’s old vampire. The scenes involving the count’s three vampire mistresses are especially chilling. Dracula is depicted as a warrior and hunter with little of the romantic qualities given to him in film. Another very effective, chilling scene is Dracula’s crossing of the ocean by ship as he slowly destroys the boat’s crew. This Victorian novel will terrify the reader with its mood and atmosphere.
Availability: Book; Book on CD; eBook & eAudiobook in cloudLibrary Rating: **** Stars (I really liked it) Reviewer: Van, Reference Librarian
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GENRE: Adult Books for Young Adults; Books to Movies; Epistolary Novels; Gothic Fiction; Horror; Horror Classics
THEME: Found Footage (It feels so real! Framing devices such as letters, documents, diaries, or video highlight the horror as it takes place in real time.); Vampire Menace (Garlic-challenged bloodsuckers feature prominently in these horror stories.)
WRITING STYLE: Compelling; Descriptive
TONE: Atmospheric; Menacing
LOCATION: London, England; Transylvania, Romania
TIME PERIOD: 19th Century
SUBJECT: British in Romania; Count Dracula; Good & Evil; Husband & Wife; Men/Women Relations; Quests; Vampires; Virtues
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