Dracula (Enriched Classics)

English language

Published Feb. 21, 2003

ISBN:
978-0-7434-7736-9
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(11 reviews)

Dracula is a novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. An epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist, but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taking a business trip to stay at the castle of a Transylvanian nobleman, Count Dracula. Harker escapes the castle after discovering that Dracula is a vampire, and the Count moves to England and plagues the seaside town of Whitby. A small group, led by Abraham Van Helsing, hunt Dracula and, in the end, kill him. Dracula was mostly written in the 1890s. Stoker produced over a hundred pages of notes for the novel, drawing extensively from Transylvanian folklore and history. Some scholars have suggested that the character of Dracula was inspired by historical figures like the Wallachian prince Vlad the Impaler or the countess Elizabeth Báthory, but there is widespread disagreement. Stoker's notes mention neither …

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reviewed Dracula by Bram Stoker

I understand why people love it...

... But it was far too dry for me. It also took me ages to read it, and I kinda glossed over the end because I wanted to be done with it. I'm going to give it another shot when Dracula Daily comes by again.

La costruzione di un immaginario

Uno dei libri più importanti per la creazione del vampiro come lo conosciamo noi, con tutte le leggende, le credenze e i personaggi iconici ormai di dominio pubblico. Il pregio più grande per me è la qualità della narrazione, che riesce a costruire immagini molto forti che ti si tracciano in testa mentre leggi; sono queste il lascito più prezioso che mi rimane di questo libro.

I heard you like vampires

Just a list of thoughts I had as I thought them:

  • Very enjoyable, fast read.
  • A little bit too much of all the characters basically falling in love with each other on first meeting and becoming best friends. A lot of “oh won’t you be my best friend for life now since we’ve been through this together?”
  • Characters are a little dumb in places where they really shouldn’t be. They literally just got done talking about how Dracula can turn into a bat, and then Quincy sees the bats sitting outside the windows staring at them and they don’t think anything more of it when it flies away.
  • Same with how they got done talking about how Dracula can turn into a mist and a control the fog, and Mina goes up to her room and sees the fog coming at her and sees them mist in her room, and …

reviewed Dracula by Bram Stoker (Signet Classics)

A great read, not just for codifying vampire lore, but the way it's built from letters and diaries.

The original novel is a great read. Not just for the way it codified modern vampire lore. But for the way it's built entirely out of diary entries, letters, news fragments, telegrams and so on. For the way it shows modern science coming to grips with ancient superstition and figuring out how to deal with it. For showing an early example of a woman participating in her own rescue. And for some of the parts that didn't make it into general pop culture. (Count Dracula spends an awful lot of time in a shipping box.)

In some senses it's the written-word equivalent of the "found footage" horror genre. Except the "sources" are wildly varying. John and Mina write their journals and letters to each other in shorthand. Business letters are of course written formally. Dr. Seward keeps an audio diary on a phonograph. Van Helsing's speech is rendered with every …

reviewed Dracula by Bram Stoker

Even if you think you know Dracula, this still holds up!

I had never given classic horror a go before, but this one was a pleasant surprise. The original Dracula story was something I thought I knew, elements like Dracula’s castle and the power possessed by that monster make an appearance here, but despite what you might expect of the original vampire, the book is still filled with great characters and moments that were truly nerve-wracking.

I couldn’t help but read faster and faster at times where the tension raised up, hoping for it to end when it was only getting worse. But its not all bad, there is always hope, and the determination of the characters to defend their loved ones and the future of humanity from the reign of the un-dead, is just great, but a few moments of old English were a little hard to read.

I listened to different audiobooks while reading, which was quite atmospheric too. …

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