King Arthur Movie Tristan

title: Dracula

author: Bram Stoker

published: 1847

pages: 444

genre: horror, classics

first line: May 3. Bistritz.-- Left Munich at 8:35 P.M., on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late.

rated: 3 1/2 out of 5

Count Dracula has inspired countless movies, books, and plays. But few, if any, have been fully faithful to Bram Stoker's original, best-selling novel of mystery and horror, love and death, sin and redemption. Dracula chronicles the vampire's journey from Transylvania to the nighttime streets of London. There, he searches for the blood of strong men and beautiful women while his enemies plot to rid the world of his frightful power.


Today's critics see Dracula as a virtual textbook on Victorian repression of the erotic and fear of female sexuality. In it, Stoker created a new word for terror, a new myth to feed our nightmares, and a character who will outlive us all.

I've had this book in my TBR pile for years...I thought I'd never get to reading it. The story is told mostly through diary entries, newspaper articles and letters.



Jonathan Harker arrives in Transylvania and is set to stay with Count Dracula at his castle for a short while. He is an English solicitor and is employed by Dracula to provide legal support for a real estate transaction. Soon enough Jonathan realizes there is something very wrong with the Count.




I like how Bram Stoker sets the mood. There is a general dark and errie mood to the story.

Soon we were hemmed in with trees, which in places arched right over the roadway till we passed as through a tunnel. And again great frowning rocks guarded us boldly on either side. Though we were in shelter, we could hear the rising wind, for it moaned and whistled through the rocks, and the branches of the trees crashed together as we swept along. It grew colder and colder still, and fine, powdery snow began to fall, so that soon we and all around us were covered with a white blanket. The keen wind still carried the howling of the dogs, though this grew fainter as we went on our way.

Jonothan soon realizes he is trapped, and that the Count is a vampire. He tries to figure a way to escape and go home to his fiancee Mina.

But I am not in heart to describe beauty, for when I had seen the view I explored further. Doors, doors, doors everywhere, and all locked and bolted. In no place save from the windows in the castle walls is there an available exit. The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a prisoner!

Mina has been staying with her rich friend Lucy, who is kind of a flirt and has three men proposing to her. Mina is worried sick over Jonothan, and the letters he was allowed to send were few and didn't seem like his usual self. This is because Dracula watched while Jonothan wrote the letters and made sure he didn't mention what was really going on in the castle.


Mina is also worried over Lucy's health. For some reason, Lucy has been sleepwalking each nite and has *gasp* two circular bitemarks on her neck. Lucy is also getting sicker and paler by the day.


When Mina finally hears about Jonothan, it is news that he has been staying with nuns for a few weeks and has been ill with 'brain fever'. Jonothan finally escaped Draculas castle. Dracula has boarded a Russian ship, the Demeter, and is on his way to England. When the ship arrives, there is no one left alive on board, the crew is mysteriously missing.


Mina leaves to be with Jonothan, and the two get married. Meanwhile, Lucy, becomes worse and Dr. VanHelsing is called in to help her. Lucy's three beaus, all give thier blood to her, during blood transfusions that are supposed to help her. But Lucy ends up dying anyway. VanHelsing knows she has been bitten by a vampire and that this is why she was so sick.


Once Mina finds out what happened to her friend, she is heartbroken. She reads Jonothan's diary, and finds out about Dracula. VanHelsing, Mina, Jonothan and two other men wind up trying to find and kill the Count. But not before Mina is bitten and begins to turn vampire.





This was a classic horror story. The characters are creepy. There is one character, a man named Renfield, who is a patient at the insane asylum. He was kind of connected to Dracula, his master. He was really nasty, eating insects and even live birds. I liked VanHelsing's character, he seems almost like a quack, yet he's the one to figure out what is really wrong with Lucy. He's the one to know she was bitten by a vampire. I liked Mina and Jonothan too. You can't help but feel bad for them. Dracula himself is a monster. You don't get the story from his point of view, but you do see it from his victims points of view. I don't see Dracula romanticized in the book, the way he is in the films. In the book, he is nasty, and just plain evil.

'With a mocking smile, he placed one hand upon my shoulder and, holding me tight, bared my throat with the other, saying as he did so, `First, a little refreshment to reward my exertions. You may as well be quiet. It is not the first time, or the second, that your veins have appeased my thirst!' I was bewildered, and strangely enough, I did not want to hinder him. I suppose it is a part of the horrible curse that such is, when his touch is on his victim. And oh, my God, my God, pity me! He placed his reeking lips upon my throat!'

All in all, this was a good book. I'm glad I read it. My only problem with it was that it was toooo long. I feel like Bram Stoker could have cut it short. It was very drawn out.

"Welcome to my house! Enter freely. Go safely, and leave something of the happiness you bring! ... I am Dracula; and I bid you welcome."

I liked the movie version of this book is Bram Stoker's Dracula, made in 1992.





about the author:



Bram Stoker



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also reviewed by:

Age 30+ ... A Lifetime of Books

the sleepy reader