Dracula
Bram Stoker
Dracula
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A young solicitor travels to Transylvania to close a property sale and finds he is not a guest but a prisoner. Months later a ship runs aground at Whitby with a dead man lashed to the wheel and no crew. Told entirely in letters, diaries, telegrams and newspaper cuttings, the novel lets the reader assemble the horror well before the characters do.
About the book
Published in 1897, Dracula tells its story through journals, letters, telegrams and newspaper reports. Jonathan Harker’s business journey to Count Dracula’s castle opens the novel, but the action soon broadens to England, where Mina Murray, Lucy Westenra and their friends confront events that resist ordinary explanation. Bram Stoker combines Gothic horror with the technologies and anxieties of the late Victorian world: trains, typewriters, medical science and recorded testimony sit beside folklore and ancient violence. The fragmented documents let several characters assemble the threat together, making the act of recording and sharing knowledge part of the struggle itself.
Characters
Count Dracula — Antagonist
A Transylvanian nobleman whose move towards England brings an ancient supernatural threat with him.
Jonathan Harker — Solicitor
A young English solicitor sent to Transylvania to complete Count Dracula’s property transaction.
Mina Murray — Jonathan’s fiancée
Jonathan’s intelligent and resourceful fiancée, skilled at organising the group’s written records.
Lucy Westenra — Mina’s friend
Mina’s warm and much-loved friend, courted by three men and troubled by a mysterious illness.
Abraham Van Helsing — Professor
A learned Dutch professor called upon when Lucy’s condition defeats conventional explanations.
John Seward — Doctor
A doctor and former suitor of Lucy who runs an asylum and records his observations by phonograph.
Arthur Holmwood — Lucy’s fiancé
Lucy’s devoted fiancé, drawn into events that challenge everything he understands.
Quincey Morris — American suitor
An adventurous American and one of Lucy’s suitors, steadfast in helping his friends.
About the author
Bram Stoker (1847–1912) was an Irish writer who spent most of his working life as business manager to the actor Henry Irving at the Lyceum Theatre in London. Dracula, published in 1897, is told entirely through letters, diaries, telegrams and newspaper cuttings — a form that lets the reader assemble the horror before the characters do. It was not the first vampire story, but it is the one that fixed the shape of every vampire story since. Stoker wrote a dozen other novels, none of which is much read now.