About Dracula

By Bram Stoker · first published in 1897 · Mystery & Thriller

Bram Stoker spent seven years researching and writing Dracula while working as the business manager of a London theatre. He never visited Transylvania; the landscapes come from library books and maps. When the novel appeared in 1897 it sold steadily rather than spectacularly, and Stoker died without knowing that he had created the most famous vampire in the world.

The story is told entirely through documents: diaries, letters, newspaper cuttings, a ship’s log and even a doctor’s phonograph recordings. No narrator knows more than the reader, so the truth about Count Dracula has to be pieced together from what frightened people wrote down at the time. It gives the book the feel of a case file, and it is surprisingly modern.

Jonathan Harker, a newly qualified solicitor, travels east to help a nobleman buy a house in England. He slowly realises that he is not a guest in the castle but a prisoner, and that his host intends to move to London. The second half becomes a chase, as a small group led by Professor Van Helsing uses train timetables, typewriters and blood transfusions to hunt something very old. This preview covers the start of Harker’s journey, as far as the inn at Bistritz where the landlady begs him not to go on.