Dracula (Penguin Classics)

I find it entirely appropriate to put up my review of Bram Stoker’s justly famous Dracula on the Feast of All Saints, November 1st. Like all of the best horror, Dracula is about how the unconquerable power of God works itself out in our broken and sinful world through the acts of the men and women He calls. There is a much misattributed quote by G. K. Chesterton on the use of fairy tales. First Things provides us an excellent citation to the essay “The Red Angel”: Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon. Dracula performs this function for adults, reminding us that evil, even very great evil, can be defeated with steadfast faith and resolute action. This is the true power of tales of terror. Why Dracula in particular is worth reading is that you will find a novelty and freshness in returning to the source that spawned a thousand imitations. But as a copy of a copy is a little less sharp than the original, you will likely be surprised upon beholding the source if your cultural awareness of vampires is wholly based upon derivative works. One of the things that struck me about Dracula was how the vampire story has shifted in the last hundred years. In Stoker’s story, the balance is nine parts terror to one part sexy time. Now, the proportion is reversed, with nine parts titillation to one terror, or even ten parts out of ten as parts of horror have been subsumed by the baser kinds of romance novels. The horror has gone out of vampire stories. Dracula is disturbing, unsettling, and terrifying. You pity those who fall into his grasp, rather than not-so-secretly wishing it were you, as in the contemporary telling. The literary form of the book is a detective story, told through the conceit of the journals of the principal characters. The result is a bit slower paced than current styles of fiction would produce, but the manner in which the tension in the book is slowly ratcheted up until it is nearly unbearable is masterful. As the plans and powers and enormities of Count Dracula are gradually revealed, the final reckoning is frequently delayed by literary devices that prevent key pieces of information from being introduced to all of the players. The reader knows things some or all of the characters do not. This is perhaps the literary equivalent of shouting at characters on the movie screen “Don’t open that door!” Despite being 124 years old, the language did not often present a difficulty, unlike the more colloquial King–of the Khyber Rifles, which is of a similar age, except in the case of Stoker’s attempts to portray the dialogue of Abraham Van Helsing and the working class accents of the many laborers interviewed whilst on the trail of Dracula. In Van Helsing’s case, his diction was just subtly off, representing a non-native speaker of English, just enough that sight reading was a little difficult. As for the working class accents, it would probably be easier if I had heard them in real life before trying to parse an attempt to render their words in a very literal way. The key characters are an interesting contrast with current practice of storytelling, as they form a party of interconnected individuals who embark on a mission of solemn purpose, a collective protagonist rather than there being a sole main character. While Dracula is not listed on Appendix N, the way in which the book focuses on a party reminded me of The Moon Pool, which is on Appendix N. Also, the list of vampiric powers and weaknesses from the AD&D 1st edition Monster Manual is almost wholly borrowed from this book. I also enjoyed that Stoker’s Late Victorian setting was firmly within the first great episode of globalization. London’s multiple daily rounds of postal delivery and the ability to telegraph a quick note not only across town but across the continent of Europe is a key part of the proceedings. You could only do marginally better with telephones. Not only messages, but people too. Van Helsing flits back and forth between London and Amsterdam using regular packet ships. And the famed Orient Express is used to cross the continent faster than a ship can cross the Mediterranean, a feat that reversed what had been the normal order of travel times for millennia. I don’t feel much compunction about spoiling the ending of such an old and famous book. Because even knowing what is to come, it still has the power to surprise in its evocation of joy in the reader. Above all, you rejoice in the Count’s defeat, because he is a thing that should not be, and his destruction restores a portion of the natural order. Modern horror has lost this, and you should go see what has been missing.

Bram Stoker had absolutely no idea just what sort of monster he was creating. I refer not to his title character, but to the book itself. It is highbrow enough that scholars and literary types feel the need to include it (if, perhaps, toward the bottom) on their lists of exemplary 19th-century popular literature, yet lowbrow enough to interest the common reader. This is not a slight to the "common reader"; I'm one, too, and I tire of dense, obnoxiously self-important prose. Stoker's goal was not to write "important" books. He knew exactly who his readers were - real people, not literary critics. That he managed to rise somewhat above even his own expectations with Dracula is a testament to his often latent skill. Stephen King has benefited from the seriousness with which some critics have taken Dracula, by often being taken more seriously than he perhaps deserves. King knows this, too; he has often described himself, tongue in cheek, as the McDonald's or General Motors of horror fiction. Stoker, while never as consistently successful as King, might have applied a similar description to himself. Dracula, though written at the end of the 19th century, seems a fairly modern book, at it moves swiftly and employs suspense techniques often associated with more recent books and films (i.e., the shifting point-of-view, "cross-cutting", if you will, between different first-person narratives to build tension). It works exceedingly well, providing a model and formula followed by many successors - though often with less impressive results. The central villain - Count Dracula himself - is quite rightly absent from the stage a good deal of the time, so that he may grow in the imagination of the reader as his invisible presence permeates nearly every page. He is always just on the other of the window, door, or wall, or just across the street - his nefarious intentions influencing events as the book draws inexorably toward confrontation with the monster. Dracula's flaw is also, in a way, its virtue: there are no evil human characters. Almost everyone is quite heroic and selfless in a sort of two-dimensional way. It is not that the characters are underdeveloped (as many complain), but that they tend to be representative of human beings' more enviable qualities, and therefor seem less realistic to the modern reader. But, then, one has to realize that the entire book is composed of diaries, letters, and faux-news clippings. I get a sense of subtle humor, of the "unreliable narrator" sort, from some passages of Dracula, as characters make themselves out to be more chivalrous, loving, and trusting than, perhaps, they actually were during the "real" events they describe. For example, one can only infer Dr. Seward's actual response to Van Helsing's request for autopsy knives so he can decapitate his beloved Lucy's corpse and take out her heart before burial! Reading between the lines, Seward's description of the event in his diary becomes darkly funny as he struggles to maintain a sense of 19th-century British decorum while relating the scene. His description of Van Helsing's anguish gives us a clue: Seward seems to suspect his mentor may be going off the deep end, and his expressions of blind trust in the old man may be a way of placating him. Dracula's greatest virtue, though, is its well-oiled plot. It's an impressive machine that still functions marvelously more than a century after its making. It is a mean, sharp skeleton fleshed out with numerous horrific digressions (the episodes with Dracula's "brides", the log of the Demeter, the "bloofer lady", etc.) that serve as tiles in a mosaic gradually completing the rather lean narrative that develops from them. Compare it with, say, Peter Straub's rather bloated attempt at the same technique in Floating Dragon, a rather messy and unsatisfying novel with isolated moments of brilliance, and you start to realize what a taut, precise engine Stoker really fashioned. What keeps me from giving Dracula five stars is that it's necessarily limited by its own goals. Truly great popular novels somehow manage to tell exciting stories while also reaching more deeply than they pretend. They reverberate on levels well above (and below) their apparent target. While many have read exotic psychosexual interpretations into Dracula, I find it shallows out rather quickly once it has served up its scares and menace. Yes, there is a genuine (and intended) erotic subtext, but it fails to be profoundly illuminating, since it was never intended to be. It serves its disquieting purpose, and then departs, rather than lingering. That's how Stoker designed his effects, and they work perfectly. He set out to write a good four-star novel, and he did. A hundred years later, it's still good four-star novel, popular as ever, as well it deserves. Excellent work, and worth a place in your library.

KindleUnlimited review. Highly recommend anyone who heard of or watched a Dracula film read this novel. Written in the style of a synchronous diary (i.e., epistolary format), the original Dracula story is a gothic Victorian horror novel containing several variations from the numerous screen adaptations. Each early chapter is entitled “Jonathan’s Harkin’s Journal” and starting with “3 May. Bistritz” is similarly dated with the day and month with occasionally the time. Starting in Chapter 5 the narration expands to include person correspondence between Mina Murray & Lucy Westenra and Quincy Morris & Arthur Holmwood as well as a diary entry from Dr. John Seward. Chapter 6 includes Mina’s journal entries from to 24 July to 6 August and Dr. Seward’s diary entry from 5 June to 20 July. This unique narrative approach continues and expands throughout all 27 chapters (last dated entry 6 November) providing a multifaceted and rich world with an account of events from different character perspectives. As a side note, chapter 25 provides a physiological profile of Count Dracula commensurate with a crime scene investigation procedural program. I think the most interesting character not present in film adaptations is Quincy Morris, a noble American Cowboy brandishing Winchester repeating weapons. Although the love quad-angle between Lucy and three of the men (Morris, Seward, and Holmwood) appears farcical when first presented, it established the prior relationship between the men and why no animosity developed between the them after wards. Furthermore, the manly friends have participated in animal hunts where Morris the American was the director and guide. Another apparent anachronism is how wealth us in itself a virtue: “And, too, it made me think of the wonderful power of money! What can it not do when it is properly applied; and what might it do when basely used! I felt so thankful that Lord Godalming is rich, and that both he and Mr. Morris, who also has plenty of money, are willing to spend it so freely. For if they did not, our little expedition could not start, either so promptly or so well equipped, as it will within another hour.” Some may argue that this viewpoint is still prevalent is modern society… ergo economic might makes right. Although the novel was published in 1897, the year is omitted but presumed to be contemporary to the 1890s. Most notably is detailed description of Count Dracula: “His face was a strong—a very strong—aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor… I had noticed the backs of his hands… seemed rather white and fine… rather coarse—broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in the center of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point… his breath was rank…” An odd dissimilarity is the locomotion of how Dracula traverses the castle’s exterior “just as a lizard moves along a wall” whereas in many movies he changes into a flying bat. Later he does travel as a bat, a wolf, fog, and a puff of smoke. Another story difference is Dracula’s ability to call and direct large packs of wolves. He clearly commands the wolves, rats, and spiders as he does any person under his vampiric spell. The story unfolds as a mystery. It’s not until the end of Chapter 14 that Professor Abraham Van Helsing reveals what actually happened to Miss Lucy. There are curious mentions in Stoker’s “Dracula” (1897) novel that make it seem more contemporary. Characters anonymously traverse London in Hansom cabs much like people take an Uber ride today. The party travelled from Paris to Varna via the Orient Express which predates the eponymous “Murder on the Orient Express” (1934) by Agatha Christie. Characters dispatch letters and telegrams like modern society send emails and text messages. Mina prepares typed pages of chronology organized journal entries with her traveler’s typewriter like printing on a modern computer. Similarly, Doctor Seward’s penchant to record his diary instead of writing had the character quip “How I miss my phonograph! To write diary with a pen is irksome to me; but Van Helsing says I must.” There is the typical Victorian ethnocentric view of other cultures. For instance, when discussing killing Count Dracula in Transylvania the author stated “We think that we shall not have much trouble with officials or the seamen. Thank God! this is the country where bribery can do anything, and we are well supplied with money. We have only to make sure that the ship cannot come into port between sunset and sunrise without our being warned, and we shall be safe. Judge Moneybag will settle this case, I think!” As usually the case, Raeford Renfeild’s and Dr. Van Helsing characters are more fully explored in the novel than it’s film counterparts. Renfield is possessed by Dracula much like Gollum in Lord of the Rings and is truly a pitiful character. Whereas, Van Helsing (both an experienced medical doctor, educator, and lawyer) is intelligent, brave, and sincere - a true friend. Similarly, many know that Dracula preying upon the neck of his victims is an allegory for sexual assault. However, the end of Chapter 21 and beginning of Chapter 22 details Dracula’s attack on Mina Harken leaves no doubt to the correlation. The Count’s backstory is summarized as “… he was in life a most wonderful man. Soldier, statesman, and alchemist… He had a mighty brain, a learning beyond compare, and a heart that knew no fear and no remorse... and there was no branch of knowledge of his time that he did not essay.“

Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula is a classic of horror, forming a pillar of the genre and becoming the standard for vampire fiction. This place in the canon of horror is well-deserved. The novel opens with Jonathan Harker, an English lawyer, visiting Castle Dracula in Transylvania to help the Count with purchase property in England, as the Count seeks to move to London, where he will have unlimited prey to feed upon. This section, with Harker trapped in the castle and subject to every manner of terror, might just be my favorite of the novel. The mood is as oppressive, spooky, gloomy, and frightening as anything I've read. From there, we follow Dracula's arrival in England, and the conflict between the Count and Harker's friends, led by Abraham Van Helsing, who is the only one of our heroes to initially suspect what they are really dealing with. The hunt to find and slay Dracula and undo his evil deeds is well-orchestrated, and Stoker definitely conveys a sense of desperation as Van Helsing and the others try to foil Dracula's well-laid plans. The novel is written in epistolary format, meaning that it is entirely comprised of journal and diary entries, letters, telegrams, newspaper clippings, ship's logs, and other documentation. This actually works very well, as it allows us to view the thoughts of each character, and even becomes important to the plot itself, as the vampire hunters eventually compare notes to piece together the clues to solve the mystery. The characters are generally well-done, with Count Dracula and Abraham Van Helsing both more than holding up their end of the conflict that defines the narrative. Mina Harker and John Seward are also very strong and compelling characters. Jonathan Harker and Lucy Westenra spend a lot of their time being the victims, and while they do that well, they aren't quite as interesting on their own merits. Arthur Holmwood and Quincey Morris mostly serve to round out the group of vampire hunters with the necessary resources and talents, though Holmwood's engagement to Lucy gives him some depth. The madman Renfield is entertaining when he appears. There's definitely a layer of Victorian propriety to the novel, but that is part of the tension and entertainment, as so much of the action actually goes against that propriety. The sexual overtones of vampirism certainly fits this characteristic, as does Mina Harker's strong active role in the story, contrary to gender expectations of the time. In fact, when the men try to keep Mina sheltered and in her proper protected place, things get worse for the group until she gets back into the action. For a novel written in 1897, that's pretty progressive. I listened to Brilliance Audio's 1994 production of Dracula, with Tom Casaletto as the narrator, Fredrick Scadron as Jonathan Harker, Sheila Hart as Mina Harker, Mary Beth Quillen Gregor as Lucy Westenra, and Michael Page as John Seward. Each reads the journal entries or other documents written by their character, with Casaletto picking up the other sources. Overall, the cast is strong and the production is enjoyable. My only problem with the production is that not a one of the readers could remotely approximate Quincey Morris' Texas accent. I recently read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus and Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, two other horror classics. I really enjoyed those two books (see my Amazon reviews for my thoughts on those two books), but I would have to say that I enjoyed Dracula even more. Dracula matches or beats the other two for mood, but tops them in action. I recommend all three, but if you were to read only one, I'd suggest Dracula. Much like Frankenstein or Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, there are good reasons that Dracula has become such a fixture of popular culture, and is still remembered and adapted to film and other formats so frequently. Whether you're interested in the history of horror literature or just looking for an exciting and scary story, I can't recommend Dracula highly enough. Bram Stoker's novel is an enduring masterpiece.

The Oxford World's Classics DRACULA edited by Roger Luckhurst has the best introduction and the best notes to DRACULA I've ever seen. It outclasses THE ESSENTIAL DRACULA, whose notes push the reader around one way or another. It explains more and it also, wisely, keeps quiet more, letting the book weave its own spell. The introduction shows how DRACULA is a wonderful mix of almost every kind of evil the Victorian English could think of. The vampire has evil features from anti-Catholic prejudice, from anti-Semitic prejudice, from prejudice against Islam, Middle Europe, the unscientific past -- about the only un-English thing that gets a good word is garlic. As the introducer points out, Dracula is in part based on the "real" Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, but is also based on so many other evil rulers and monsters, real and fictional, that no single source for our monster can be cited or believed in. In other words, Stoker got together a lot of reference works and then made Dracula up, and what a stunning, wonderful job he did. The Luckhurst Oxford World Classics edition is available on Kindle for a small price that's well worth its wonderful notes and analysis. Amazon, in its curiously mysterious way, will not show you the book if you just type in DRACULA. You have to type in something like DRACULA OXFORD instead, and I very much suggest you do that. Doing without notes of one kind or another seems out of the question to me. There are passages in a messed-up seaside-town dialect Stoker made up from a reference book, and I contend NO ONE can read these passages without notes. Luckhurst also fits all the superstitions together, to the degree that Stoker lets him, and I think you need that kind of help too. As for Stoker's DRACULA itself, it came across to me in this reading better than it ever had before. I'd read it two or three times in the past, but I'd been overexposed to NOSFERATU and the Lugosi movie, so I misremembered the book, made it cruder in my recollection than it actually was. Two main points I had forgotten (I'm afraid deep DRACULA readers won't think much of me after these admissions -- and watch out, because some of them are mild S-P-O-I-L-E-R-S): 1) Jonathan Harker, Dracula's helpless victim throughout the first fifth of the book, not only survives but gets a pat on the back for his manliness from the rest of the novel's many heroes. That was a relief, and unified the book for me. You can't keep a good man down. 2) Renfield, the crazy guy who eats flies and spiders, is a good reasoner from a high social class (Luckhurst's annotations make this quite clear, and the way Renfield talks tells the reader the same thing). In movie versions, he's creepy and that's about it. In the novel, he's a philosopher, and some of the most important points about vampire philosophy in general come to us from him. Put these two things together, and the book comes out more intelligent than I remembered, and less pure senseless horror. As pure senseless horror it's just a bit silly. The intelligence and strength of Harker and Renfield save it from that silliness. Lots of people who don't like the book point out that the opening section, where Harker and Dracula face off against one another, is as horrifying as anybody who likes nineteenth century thrillers could possibly want ... but then the book seems to go soft suddenly, focusing on a shallow woman and seeming, for quite a while, like a dull romance novel. Luckhurst's notes, again, helped me get over this impression of slowdown. The nature of manliness and womanliness is tremendously important to Stoker's world-view. As Luckhurst points out, all the novel's manly men break down at one point or another, and are braced up by their need to care for weak, helpless women. All the clichés about masculinity and femininity are dragged out -- and all of them are subverted in the most interesting, and horrifying, possible way. Mina, for example, is a strong, capable woman. Furthermore, she's practically indispensable to the vampire-hunt. The tough doctor, Seward, keeps a diary on phonograph cylinders. He's totally up-to-date, but he forgets even to write a summary of what the cylinders are about, so he can't find anything he told his recorded diary! All he can do is paw helplessly through a drawer full of phonograph cylinders. Mina types them up for him, so that at last the good guys can start tracking Dracula down. But the good guys' decision to keep her out of the rest of their activities, and inform her of nothing as they start sharpening their stakes, makes her immediately fall into Dracula's clutches. In other words, if only they trusted women more, their women wouldn't get hurt so much. Stranger than Dracula himself. But the book has lots of this kind of strangeness. We find out what vampires are bit by bit and bite by bite, but when we're all done, strangely enough, we still don't know what we've really been dealing with: a middle-European monster, or our own monstrous views of how life should go. I never had more fun than with this DRACULA.

Love the book but the mass market paperback is off low quality, first read through and pages are falling out. Next time will spend the money on a nicer version rather than this disposable one time read.

I had had Dracula on my read list for many years until I saw this version on Kindle for free and couldn't resist. I quickly got engrossed in the book as Jonathan Harker, one of the central protagonists, travels deeper and deeper into the remote regions of Europe. The tension mounts throughout his journey as the locals he meets along the way express a mixture of fear and sorrow for him, though unable to tell him directly because of the language barrier. The scenes in Dracula's castle are indeed terrifying and lonely, like something out of Lovecraft. Things become increasingly desperate, driving Harker to take riskier and riskier chances. The appearance of the women in the castle presages a motif which will become central to the subtext of the story. The corruption of female virtue to its basest and most vile form is genuinely disturbing. Dracula is not content to remain in remote regions of the world, but seeks to set himself loose on the "teeming masses" of London, England. His arrival I felt was one of the most interesting in the book and the reader begins to understand the extent of his potent and growing powers. In an unsuspecting London, Dracula has a largely free hand to spread his evil. The suspense builds as the reader understands more through the journals of the central characters than they do themselves, keeping information to themselves, much to their detriment. It's clear that Stoker aims to unseat his Victorian audience's sense of security even in their own homes and families as the vampire slowly increases his grasp. Once the women succumb to Dracula's control they are both disturbing and enticing to the heros. At this point things become gruesome. Just about anything macabre is in this single story as Stoker gives his audience a full dose of terrifying scenes. Terrible storms, remote lonely castles, wolves, bats, graveyards and cemeteries with overnight stays, home invasions, trances, insane asylums, beheadings, impalings, child abductions, and of course, vampires. The journal-istic nature of the narrative can be frustrating at times and takes some getting used to but also serves to enhance the suspense, giving us no sense of whether the character will live to write the next entry. Overall the book is quite scary and suspenseful with plenty of creepiness. I did find the mens' efforts a bit hapless at times but the author uses this to build suspense, delaying action until it is perhaps too late for them to respond. Dracula himself I found to be more powerful a foe than I had anticipated but retains some weaknesses. Reading this on my Kindle I found the formatting good but without a table of contents to allow the reader to jump to those sections. However, I found the story engaging enough that I didn't require such a feature. I can see why the horror of this book endures. It's a must-read for any fan of horror and this is a good copy of one of the classics.

This is a classic that has held the test of time. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a great story

I've wanted to buy "Dracula" by Bram Stoker for years, but it wasn't until I found this edition that I actually did it. It's a lovely, luxurious feeling to the entire book, but I have to agree with others: the print is fairly small and a little hard to read and therefore I give this book one star less than the maximum.

Drácula es uno de esos raros libros que no necesitan justificar su mito: lo encarnan. Stoker construye una novela que avanza como una sombra —silenciosa, paciente, inevitable— y que demuestra cómo el horror puede ser también arquitectura narrativa de primer nivel. Lejos del folclor popular al que luego fue reducido, el texto original es una meditación inquietante sobre el deseo, la corrupción y el contagio emocional. Su estructura epistolar no envejece; al contrario, intensifica la sensación de ver solo fragmentos de una verdad demasiado grande para ser dicha. En un género saturado de imitaciones, Drácula sigue siendo el original que nunca se desgasta. No asusta: persiste.

Just like in the description

Good page quality and 27 scary stories worth it for 210 rupes

Everymans Library hardcover novels are my new go tos for classic liturature. They have a sewn spine and binding, nice fabric cover under the book jacket and my favorite part..the beautiful pages. Super soft cream paper. I was on the hunt for a really sturdy Dracula novel that could with stand many many readings. Definitely will live up to it.