Dracula

by Bram Stoker, Leonard Wolf (Introduction), Jeffrey Meyers (Afterword)

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

The beginning of it all. The first vampire to take to the page and spawn a universal thirst for more bloodsuckers. It all starts with an ill-fated real estate transaction for poor Jonathan Harker, who unearths a danger that is more bite than bark. It’s immortally entertaining and worthy of your eyes.

The one vampire to outlive them all.

Here begins the story of an evil both ages old, and forever new. It is the story of those who instill a diabolic craving in their victims, the men and women from whose blood they draw their only sustenance. It is a novel of peculiar power, of hypnotic fascination. The reader is warned that he who enters Castle Dracula may not escape its baleful spell-even when he closes this book...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780451228680
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/05/2010
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	480
Product dimensions:	2.40(w) x 6.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Bram Stoker (1847-1912) was born in Ireland and attended Trinity College in Dublin. He joined the Irish Civil Service, then became involved in the theater. He wrote seventeen books.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter I Jonathan Harker’s Journal
(Continues…)

---

Excerpted from "Dracula"
by .
Copyright © 2010 Bram Stoker.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Part One: Dracula: The Complete Text in Cultural Context

Biographical and Historical Contexts

The Complete Text (1897)

Part Two: Contextual Documents and Illustrations

Part Three: Dracula: A Case Study in Contemporary Criticism

A Critical History of Dracula

Cultural Criticism and Dracula

New Leland Monk, Undead Images, Images of the Undead: Dracula on Film

Psychoanalytic Criticism and Dracula

Dennis Foster, The little children can be bitten: A Hunger for Dracula

Gender Criticism and Dracula

Sos Eltis, Corruption of the Blood and Degeneration of the Race: Dracula and Policing the Borders of Gender

Queer Theory and Dracula

New Renee Fox, Building Castles in the Air: Female Intimacy and Generative Queerness in Dracula

Postcolonial Theory and Dracula

New Gregory Castle, In Transit: The Passage to Empire in Stoker’s Dracula

Combining Critical Perspectives on Dracula

New Joseph Valente, Stoker’s Vampire and the Vicissitudes of Biopower

Glossary of Critical and Theoretical Terms

What People are Saying About This

Arthur Conan Doyle

I think it is the very best story of diablerie which I have read for many years. It is really wonderful how with so much exciting interest over so long a book there is never an anticlimax.

From the Publisher

"John Lee gives a superb performance of the malevolent Count Dracula, the original vampire. His relaxed low tone, while unexpected for a horror reading, works perfectly. Precise timing and eerie vocal inflections ratchet up the fear factor in each scene." —-AudioFile

Reading Group Guide

1. Dracula relies on journal fragments, letters, and newspaper clippings to tell its story. Why might Stoker have chosen to narrate the story in this way? Do letters and journal entries make the story seem more authentic or believable to you? Likewise, discuss the significance that many of the male protagonists are doctors (Dr. Seward) or men of science (Dr. Van Helsing). Why is this important to the story?

2. How does the novel invert Christian mythology in its description of Count Dracula's reign of terror? For instance, what specific elements of Stoker's story parallel scenes or images from the New Testament? Why might this subversion of Christian myth be significant?

3. Discuss the roles of Lucy Westenra and Mina Harker in the novel. How are the two women similar? Different? What accounts for their differences? To what extent does the novel depend on both of these women to propel the narrative forward?

4. Discuss the role of sexuality in Dracula. Would you say that Dracula attempts to reproduce himself sexually or by some other means? In what ways does the figure of Dracula subvert conventional notions of heterosexuality? Consider, for instance, his predilection for drinking blood and his habit of making his victims feed from his chest.

5. What are the elements of vampire folklore? For example, what, according to the novel, attracts or repels a vampire? How do you kill a vampire for good? Although Stoker did not invent the mythology of the vampire, his novel firmly established the conventions of vampire fiction. Choose another novel that deals with vampires and compare it with Dracula. (Consider, for example, one of Anne Rice's vampirebooks.) In what ways are the novels similar? Different?

6. Consider Freud's essay "The Uncanny" in relation to Stoker's Dracula. How would Freud describe the world that Stoker evokes in the novel? Is this a world of common reality? Or is it a world governed by supernatural belief? Or both? Discuss Freud's claim that the writer of gothic fiction is "betraying to us the superstitiousness which we have ostensibly surmounted; he deceives us by promising to give us the sober truth, and then after all overstepping it." In what ways does Stoker's narrative strategy of employing newspaper clippings and journal entries promise the "sober truth"? To what extent do you think Dracula achieves a sense of the uncanny?

Foreword

1. Dracula relies on journal fragments, letters, and newspaper clippings to tell its story. Why might Stoker have chosen to narrate the story in this way? Do letters and journal entries make the story seem more authentic or believable to you? Likewise, discuss the significance that many of the male protagonists are doctors (Dr. Seward) or men of science (Dr. Van Helsing). Why is this important to the story?

2. How does the novel invert Christian mythology in its description of Count Dracula's reign of terror? For instance, what specific elements of Stoker's story parallel scenes or images from the New Testament? Why might this subversion of Christian myth be significant?

3. Discuss the roles of Lucy Westenra and Mina Harker in the novel. How are the two women similar? Different? What accounts for their differences? To what extent does the novel depend on both of these women to propel the narrative forward?

4. Discuss the role of sexuality in Dracula. Would you say that Dracula attempts to reproduce himself sexually or by some other means? In what ways does the figure of Dracula subvert conventional notions of heterosexuality? Consider, for instance, his predilection for drinking blood and his habit of making his victims feed from his chest.

5. What are the elements of vampire folklore? For example, what, according to the novel, attracts or repels a vampire? How do you kill a vampire for good? Although Stoker did not invent the mythology of the vampire, his novel firmly established the conventions of vampire fiction. Choose another novel that deals with vampires and compare it with Dracula. (Consider, for example, one of Anne Rice'svampire books.) In what ways are the novels similar? Different?

6. Consider Freud's essay "The Uncanny" in relation to Stoker's Dracula. How would Freud describe the world that Stoker evokes in the novel? Is this a world of common reality? Or is it a world governed by supernatural belief? Or both? Discuss Freud's claim that the writer of gothic fiction is "betraying to us the superstitiousness which we have ostensibly surmounted; he deceives us by promising to give us the sober truth, and then after all overstepping it." In what ways does Stoker's narrative strategy of employing newspaper clippings and journal entries promise the "sober truth"? To what extent do you think Dracula achieves a sense of the uncanny?

Editorial Reviews

"Those who cannot find their own reflection in Bram Stoker's still-living creation are surely the undead ."
— New York Times Review of Books

"An exercise in masculine anxiety and nationalist paranoia, Stoker's novel is filled with scenes that are staggeringly lurid and perverse.... The one in Highgate cemetery, where Arthur and Van Helsing drive a stake through the writhing body of the vampirised Lucy Westenra, is my favourite."
— Sarah Waters, author of The Little Stranger

"It is splendid. No book since Mrs. Shelley's Frankenstein or indeed any other at all has come near yours in originality, or terror."
— Bram Stoker's Mother

From the Publisher

DRACULA cannot be described as a domestic novel, nor its annals as those of a quiet life. The circumstances described are from the first peculiar. A young solicitor sent for on business by a client in Transylvania goes through some unusual experiences. He finds himself shut up in a half ruined castle with a host who is only seen at night and three beautiful females who have the misfortune of being vampires. Their intentions, which can hardly be described as honourable, are to suck his blood, in order to sustain their own vitality. Count Dracula (the host) is also a vampire but has grown tired of his compatriots, however young and beautiful, and has a great desire for what may literally be called fresh blood. He has therefore sent for the solicitor that through his means he may be introduced to London society. Without understanding the Count's views, Mr. Harker has good reason for having suspicions of his client. Wolves come at his command, and also fogs; he is also too clever by half at climbing. There is a splendid prospect from the castle terrace, which Mr. Harker would have enjoyed but for his conviction that he would never leave the place alive-
. . .
These scenes and situations, striking as they are, become commonplace compared with Count Dracula's goings on in London. As Falstaff was not only witty himself but the cause of wit in other people, so a vampire, it seems, compels those it has bitten (two little marks on the throat are its token, usually taken by faculty for the scratches of a broach) to become after death vampires also. Nothing can keep them away but garlic, which is, perhaps, why that comestible is so popular in certain countries. One may imagine, therefore,how the thing spread in London after the Count's arrival. The only chance of stopping it was to kill the Count before any of his victims died, and this was a difficult job, for though several centuries old, he was very young and strong, and could become a dog or a bat at pleasure. However, it is undertaken by four resolute and high-principled persons, and how it is managed forms the subject of the story, of which nobody can complain that it is deficient in dramatic situations. We would not however, recommend it to nervous persons for evening reading.

1897 London Times reviewMonday August 23rd

Gr 5-9–For readers wanting a small shiver down their spines, these books will suffice. Stoker’s Dracula is succinct and well edited. The art is stale and tame and might titillate, but it won’t produce any nightmares. The adaptation in Dorian Gray can be clunky at times but it covers the main points of the story. The beautiful and youthful Dorian Gray is never very attractive in the illustrations, but the decaying painting will appropriately disgust young readers. The story in The Invisible Man is heavily edited, and the action is crammed into a few pages, but the scenes in which the Invisible Man is on the loose are intense. The illustrations are fairly detailed and include some graphic scenes of blood and a nearly naked Invisible Man. All three books include information about the authors and a glossary. There are better adaptations of these novels available, but these titles provide slim and chilling reads that give a taste of the actual stories for reluctant readers.–Carrie Rogers-Whitehead, Kearns Library, UT

School Library Journal

This illustrated adaptation of Bram Stoker's work trades the epistolary nature of the original for a condensed, third-person narration, supplemented by selections from Jonathan Harker's journal entries and from John Seward's memoirs. Hitting the major plot points, like Jonathan's arrival at Dracula's castle and Lucy's frightening transformation, Raven retains much of the subtle terror of Jonathan's imprisonment, while providing Mina with more volition (" ‘Tonight we end this,' added Mina firmly"). Readers will likely be chilled by Gilbert's evocative ink and colored pencil images and drawn to the enigmatic Count, with his long, blond hair and violet eyes. A lavish and accessible retelling. Ages 12-up. (July)

Publishers Weekly

"Glennis Byron’s succinct yet comprehensive introduction provides a useful overview of critical responses to Stoker’s text. Even more valuable is the inclusion of supplementary material (some of which has not, until now been readily available) that clearly places Dracula in its historical context."

Elizabeth Miller Memorial University

"Valuable for both research and classroom use. All Dracula scholars will want to own this useful, very reasonably-priced text."

Margaret L. Carter Bradley University

"Glennis Byron has done a superb job of collecting just the right supplementary materials to accompany the novel, including reviews by Stoker's contemporaries, biographical material, information on the social and cultural topics that concerned Stoker and his readers, even a tourist guide to London in the late nineteenth-century."

Carol A. Senf Georgia Institute of Technology

"No other edition so carefully assembles a wealth of contextual material, nor succeeds so admirably in drawing the reader into Stoker's cultural milieu."

David Glover University of Southampton

Narrators David Horovitch, Jamie Parker, Joseph Kloska, and Alison Pettitt and cast adopt the identities of the well-known characters of Bram Stoker’s classic: Jonathan Harker, Mina, Lucy, the Count, and others. As the story is told in a series of diary entries and letters, Dracula himself comes off as both charming and caring—until his true form is revealed. Highlights of this production include a childlike portrait of Mina and bone-chilling portrayals of Harker and Van Helsing as the tension of the twisted plot rises and Dracula's sinister powers and needs are revealed. Fans of the genre will be reminded just how psychically unsettling this horror story is. R.O. SYNC 2015, 2016 ALA Media Award © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

APRIL 2015 - AudioFile