Dracula- The Original Classic Novel with Bonus Annotated Introduction

By Bram Stoker and Premium Classics

Sink your teeth into the ageless tale of the famous vampire Count Dracula.

Dracula first horrified reader

• Language: English
• Publisher: Luna Forest Publishing
• Release date: Feb 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9781960027092

Bram Stoker

Bram Stoker (1847-1912) was an Irish novelist. Born in Dublin, Stoker suffered from an unknown illness as a young boy before entering school at the age of seven. He would later remark that the time he spent bedridden enabled him to cultivate his imagination, contributing to his later success as a writer. He attended Trinity College, Dublin from 1864, graduating with a BA before returning to obtain an MA in 1875. After university, he worked as a theatre critic, writing a positive review of acclaimed Victorian actor Henry Irving’s production of Hamlet that would spark a lifelong friendship and working relationship between them. In 1878, Stoker married Florence Balcombe before moving to London, where he would work for the next 27 years as business manager of Irving’s influential Lyceum Theatre. Between his work in London and travels abroad with Irving, Stoker befriended such artists as Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, Hall Caine, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In 1895, having published several works of fiction and nonfiction, Stoker began writing his masterpiece Dracula (1897) while vacationing at the Kilmarnock Arms Hotel in Cruden Bay, Scotland. Stoker continued to write fiction for the rest of his life, achieving moderate success as a novelist. Known more for his association with London theatre during his life, his reputation as an artist has grown since his death, aided in part by film and television adaptations of Dracula, the enduring popularity of the horror genre, and abundant interest in his work from readers and scholars around the world.

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D R A C U L A

by

Bram Stoker

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TO

MY DEAR FRIEND

HOMMY-BEG

Dracula is in the public domain.

All original additions, including annotations, are copyright © 2023 by Premium Classics and may not be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Contents

Bram Stoker and Dracula

BRAM STOKER, THE MAN

Abraham Stoker was born in Clontarf, a northern coastal suburb of Dublin, Ireland, on November 8th, 1847. He was the third of seven children and was named after his father. Stoker’s parents, Abraham Stoker and Charlotte Mathilda Blake Thornley, were devout members of the Church of Ireland Parish of Clontarf, where each of their children was baptized.

An unknown illness bound Stoker to his bed until he was seven, when he finally recovered and began schooling. I was naturally thoughtful, and the leisure of long illness gave opportunity for many thoughts which were frightful according to their kind in later years, Stoker wrote of his early childhood. Stoker attended Bective House school, which was operated by Reverend William Woods.

Despite his sickly childhood, a time when he was unable to walk or even stand, Stoker lived the rest of his life without lasting effects or further severe illness. He went on to excel as an athlete on Dublin’s Trinity College football and rugby teams. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1870 and later pursued his Master’s degree in 1875.

During his time at Trinity College, Stoker was an auditor of the College Historical Society and president of the University Philosophical Society, where he wrote his first paper on Sensationalism in Fiction and Society. Stoker remains the only student to hold both positions in Trinity College’s history.

After graduation, Stoker spent ten years as a civil servant at Dublin Castle. In his spare time, he wrote a ten-chapter novella, The Primrose Path, and short stories Crystal Cup and The Chain of Destiny, all of which were published in 1875 in the weekly newspaper, The Shamrock. Stoker’s first book was a handbook in legal administration entitled Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland, published in 1879. He did not turn to writing full-length fiction until later in life, and he published his first novel, the romantic thriller The Snake’s Pass, in 1890.

Meanwhile, Stoker also became an unpaid drama critic for the Dublin Evening Mail (later the Evening Mail), which was co-owned by gothic writer Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, who may have sparked Stoker’s interest in the genre—or perhaps not, as Stoker only began writing his iconic vampire tale over twenty years later.

Though theater critics were often held in low esteem, the quality of Stoker’s reviews stood him apart from the stigma. In December 1876, Stoker gave his idol, Sir Henry Irving, a favorable review for his production of Hamlet at the Theatre Royal in Dublin. Sir Henry Irving took notice of Stoker’s astute analysis and kind words and invited him for dinner at the Shelbourne Hotel, where Irving stayed. The two quickly became friends.

Stoker married famed beauty Florence Anne Lemon Balcombe in 1878. One of her former suitors was Oscar Wilde, whom Stoker had known from his days at Trinity College. In fact, Stoker had successfully petitioned for Wilde to join the Philosophical Society while Stoker was president. Understandably, Wilde was angry with Florence’s decision to marry Stoker, but their friendship eventually resumed, with Stoker visiting Wilde after his infamous downfall.

Bram and Florence Stoker moved to London. There, Stoker began working as Sir Henry Irving’s acting manager, writing dozens of letters daily and accompanying Irving on his American tours. Shortly after, Stoker became the business manager of Irving’s Lyceum Theatre and remained in that role for 27 years.

On December 31, 1879, Florence gave birth to Stoker’s only child, Irving Noel Thornley Stoker. Working for Sir Henry Irving, the most famous actor of the time, opened the doors to London’s high society and solidified Stoker as a notable figure. Stoker met the influential painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and renowned author Sir Thomas Henry Hall Caine. Stoker and Caine became close friends, and Stoker would eventually dedicate Dracula to him.

Though Irving’s tours allowed Stoker to travel much of the world, he never visited Eastern Europe, an important setting in his most famous novel. Irving was quite popular in the United States and was invited to the Whitehouse twice, bringing Stoker along to meet Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.

Stoker eventually set two novels in America and often created American characters to capture his perspective of the country. Those familiar with Dracula will remember Stoker’s character, Quincey Morris, who carried a bowie knife at all times and was one of three men who proposed to Lucy Westenra. Morris described himself as a teller of tall tales and a rough fellow, who hasn’t perhaps lived as a man should (Dracula, Chapter 25).

Meeting Walt Whitman, a literary idol of his, remains one of Stoker’s more controversial American exploits. Previously, in 1872, Stoker wrote Whitman a peculiar letter that some interpret as an expression of deeply suppressed homosexuality.

Between 1892 and 1910, Stoker enjoyed month-long holidays to the coastal village of Cruden Bay in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The isolation, free time, and dramatic backdrop allowed and inspired much of Stoker’s writing. He went on to set two novels in Cruden Bay, The Watter’s Mou’ (1895) and The Mystery of the Sea (1902), and began work on Dracula there in 1895.

Some believe that Slains Castle in Cruden Bay may have provided visual inspiration for Stoker’s famous gothic novel. A distinctive room there, the octagonal hall, matches Stoker’s description of the octagonal room in Castle Dracula. Stoker’s signatures from 1894 and 1895 can still be viewed in the village’s Kilmarnock Arms Hotel’s guest book.

Stoker finished and published Dracula in 1897 and immediately received positive reviews. Any negative reviews the novel received were from those who regarded it as excessively frightening, which is a positive review in its own way.

Stoker enjoyed his fame and continued writing until he suffered several strokes and died on April 20th, 1912 at his home at No. 26 St George’s Square, London. Though some biographers attribute his death to overwork, his death certificate listed locomotor ataxia as the cause of death, a common symptom of advanced syphilis.

Stoker was cremated and his ashes were placed in a display urn at Golders Green Crematorium in North London. Following Florence’s death in 1937, her ashes were scattered at the Gardens of Rest there. Their son, Irving Noel Stoker, died in 1961, after which his ashes joined his father’s in the crematorium.

Bram Stoker’s Private Life

Some have speculated that Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker were involved romantically in school and attribute the homoerotic themes in Dracula to Stoker’s friendship with Sir Henry Irving. However, at the time, none outside Stoker’s close circle suspected such a relationship, even when Stoker moved to London to become Irving’s acting manager, writing dozens of his letters daily and accompanying him on American tours. Stoker later became the business manager of Irving’s Lyceum Theatre in London, remaining in that role for 27 years.

In truth, Stoker kept his private life cryptic. As a contemporary looking back on the historical figure, it may be simple to add up our knowledge of closeted behavior and compare it to Stoker. For some, it may seem a stretch. Noel Dobbs, Stoker’s great-grandson, discovered The Lost Journal of Bram Stoker in the family home’s dusty attic in London. The Robinson Press had recently published this book-length collection of notes, jokes, observations, scribblings, and sketches, but Stoker remains a mystery even in his diary. The fitting phrase The cryptic meaning of silence features on one page, accurately describing what we can learn about Stoker from his personal writing. He remained guarded even when writing for himself, leading to the question: Why keep a journal at all?

Stoker described himself as naturally secretive to the world in a letter to poet Walt Whitman. Later, in that same letter, Stoker describes himself in detail: I have a heavy jaw and a big mouth and thick lips, sensitive nostrils– a snub nose and straight hair. A description like this might suggest that Stoker was advertising himself to the great poet. In his 2012 essay, Coming Out of the Coffin, Turkish novelist Kaya Genç suggested this to be a telltale sign of writerly Victorian homosexuality—and I’m inclined to agree.

One entry written in Stoker’s journal on August 5, 1871, briefly seems to lay the man’s inner workings bare: Will men ever believe that a strong man can have a woman’s heart and the wishes of a lonely child? Stoker seems quite genuine, vulnerable even.

Contrary to Stoker’s secrecy, Oscar Wilde sought to blend his private and public self, not hiding his sexual preferences and flamboyant nature. He enjoyed revealing secrets, his own as well as others’, which begs the question: If Stoker and Wilde had been friends from an early age, why would he not reveal Stoker’s secret either overtly or covertly? Or was there a secret to reveal at all? I can’t imagine such a revelation would have gone unnoticed. Still, although Wilde and Stoker had been lifelong acquaintances, Stoker was not among Wilde’s mourners at his funeral in 1900. Furthermore, in 1912, the year of his death, Stoker was so outspokenly homophobic as to go as far as to demand that all homosexual authors in Britain be imprisoned.

The Inspiration Behind Dracula

Before beginning work on Dracula, Stoker spent several years researching Central and Eastern European folklore and mythological stories of vampires. Stoker was a member of the London Library and conducted much of this research there. In 2018, library staff discovered some of the books Stoker had used, complete with notes and marginalia.

Some literary historians believed Hungarian writer Ármin Vámbéry spun dark tales of the Carpathian Mountains to Stoker when they met, inspiring the gothic novel, yet this theory has been challenged.

Elizabeth Miller, a professor and expert on the writing of Dracula and Bram Stoker, stated: The only comment about the subject matter of the talk was that Vámbéry ‘spoke loudly against Russian aggression.’ There has been nothing in their conversations about the ‘tales of the terrible Dracula’ that supposedly ‘inspired Stoker to equate his Vampire-protagonist with the long-dead tyrant.’ Miller claims, by this time, that Stoker’s concept for the novel had been developed, and that he was already using the name Dracula for his vampire.

VLAD THE IMPALER

In their 1972 book In Search of Dracula, Radu Florescu and Raymond McNally claimed Stoker based his Count Dracula on Vlad III, commonly known as Vlad the Impaler or Vlad Dracula, an infamous Voivode, or ruler, of Wallachia, a mountainous region of Romania.

The comparison is easy to make without knowing the details of Vlad III’s history. Vlad III was born the second son of Vlad Dracul, who became the ruler of Wallachia in 1436. The Ottoman Empire took Vlad III and his younger brother hostage in 1442 to secure their father’s loyalty. To keep Wallachia from falling under Ottoman rule, János Hunyadi, regent-governor of Hungary, invaded Wallachia and murdered Vlad III’s father and eldest brother in 1447. Hunyadi installed Vlad III’s second cousin, Vladislav II, as the new Voivode of Wallachia before launching a military campaign against the Ottomans in the autumn of 1448 with Vladislav’s Wallachian support.

Vlad III sought refuge in Moldovia and later in Hungary. Relations between Hungary and Vladislav II eventually deteriorated, and Vlad III invaded Wallachia, his homeland and birthright, in 1456 with Hungarian support. Vladislav died fighting the invading force, and Vlad III began purging the Wallachian Boyars (nobles) to strengthen his position. Vlad III raided villages and impaled many Transylvanian Saxons who supported his rivals, Dan and Basarab Laiotă, Vladislav’s brothers, thus earning his name, Vlad the Impaler.

When the Ottoman Sultan, Mehmed II, sent envoys to demand Vlad III pay homage, Vlad III impaled them. He then attacked Ottoman territory, slaughtering tens of thousands of Turks and Muslim Bulgarians in February 1462. In response, Mehmed II launched a campaign against Wallachia to install Vlad III’s younger brother, Radu, on the throne. After Vlad III failed to capture Mehmed II in June 1462, the Ottomans pulled out of Wallachia, but still, more and more boyars shifted their support to Radu. In Transylvania, Vlad III sought aid from Mátyás Corvinus, King of Hungary, but the king had him imprisoned in late 1462.

Basarab Laiotă dethroned Radu, taking the Wallachian throne in his absence. Vlad III remained imprisoned until 1475, when he was released at the request of Stephen III of Moldovia. Despite his lengthy incarceration, Vlad III fought in Corvinus’s army against the Ottomans in Bosnia in 1476. He earned Hungarian and Moldovan support to force Basarab Laiotă to flee in November.

However, before the end of the year, Basarab Laiotă returned with Ottoman support, and Vlad III was killed in battle on January 10th, 1477.

Vlad III is held in high regard as a national hero in modern-day Romania despite his numerous acts of cruelty. Accounts of his infamous deeds were among the first best-sellers in German-speaking regions. In Russia, Vlad III’s stories suggested that he could strengthen his rule through intimidation and the application of brutal punishments, a sentiment Romanian historians adopted in the 19th century.

Myths of this great yet terrible ruler spread through the lower classes of the region until Vlad III was said to have dark, supernatural powers derived from his cruelty. Still, few of these fantastical accounts made their way into the literature of the time.

Bram Stoker borrowed the name Dracula from the ghoulish mountainous region Vlad III ruled, and some mysticism that surrounded the man’s memory. However, no other commonalities between the historical figure and Stoker’s antagonist are evident in Stoker’s notes..

ERZSÉBET BÁTHORY, COUNTESS OF TORTURE

Another possible historical figure who might have influenced Stoker’s vision of Dracula and his terrifyingly sexually charged brides is Countess Erzsébet Báthory de Ecsed, a Hungarian noblewoman and alleged serial killer.

Rumors of Báthory’s cruelty began after her marriage and spread through the region. Ostensibly, Count Ferenc Nádasdy, Báthory’s husband, schooled her in the art of torture. He had a girl restrained, slathered in honey, and ravaged by insects for the Countess’ pleasure. He also presented Báthory with gloves bristling with steel spikes to punish her servants’ mistakes. Báthory’s aunt introduced her to orgies and the occult, coming into contact with people considered witches, alchemists, and sorcerers.

Báthory moved to Čachtice Castle in 1604 following her husband’s death. In Countess Dracula: The Life and Times of Elizabeth Báthory, Tony Thorne wrote: Tales of her malice towards staff became so widespread that local families hid their daughters from her service. Unable to satiate her cruelty on servants any longer, Báthory supposedly extended her abuse to a higher class.

She was said to have begun killing daughters of the lesser gentry after their parents sent the girls to learn courtly etiquette in Báthory’s castle. Accounts of these suspected killings spread through the kingdom from 1602 to 1604.

Killing serfs and servants, who indeed had fewer rights, was gauche but not really illegal for a noble, says Racheal Bledsaw, professor of history at Washington State’s Highline College. Killing your fellow nobles, even ones of lower rank, was a far more serious problem and not one that could be ignored.

A local Lutheran minister, István Magyari, spoke out against Báthory in his sermons as well as in court in Vienna. In March of 1610, György Thurzó, the Palatine of Hungary, the highest ranking office in the kingdom, and devout Lutheran, opened an investigation by order of the King of Hungary, Mátyás II. By October 1610, the investigators had collected 52 witness statements. That number had risen drastically to over 300 before the new year. Some witnesses named relatives who died while under Báthory’s tutelage.

In 1610, Báthory and four household servants were accused of torturing and killing more than 600 women and girls since 1590. Her servants were tried and executed, and Báthory was confined to her castle in 1611, where she remained until her death in 1614, at age 54.

Many historians believe Báthory’s investigation and trial were a witch hunt, a ploy for her rivals to seize the Countess’s holdings. The investigation was based on rumors; no known physical evidence was brought forth, and no documentation. However, her alleged cruelty still took root in the region’s mythology.

Tales of Báthory bathing in the blood of young women to preserve her own youthfulness were told in the dark to frighten children. Whispered mentions of her plunging needles into her victims while they were still alive spread through Hungary and eventually the rest of Europe. There were also rumors of Báthory drinking the blood of the undead, a vampire countess who sought out the blood of young girls in order to become immortal.

ROMANIAN FOLKLORE

Chilling, isn’t it? Bram Stoker must have thought so, but the vast majority of his inspiration for Dracula was derived from Romanian folklore itself. Legends of vampires were and still are prevalent in Romania. Throughout the middle ages, any catastrophic event was blamed on a vampire, sending commoners out to find and kill the monster responsible. They would exhume graves and mistake natural occurrences for evidence. Blood in the mouth of an exhumed corpse was caused by the body bloating and forcing blood into the mouth, but the would-be vampire hunters believed the suspected vampire had recently claimed a victim. Or, a well-sealed coffin buried in the cold winter ground would delay decay, giving the illusion of an undead creature slumbering after a night of stalking prey.

Believers decapitated the bodies of suspected vampires and stuffed their mouths with a brick or cloves of garlic, just as Stoker’s Professor Abraham Van Helsing did to the Brides of Dracula. There are many examples of skeletal remains bearing signs of ritualistic vampire hunting, such as the Vampire of Venice, who had a brick forced into his skull’s mouth, breaking both upper and lower jaws.

Iron cages covered some graves, bodies were found with iron rods driven through their chests, and bodies were buried face down so if a vampire demon woke the body, the demon would be immediately cast back down to hell, according to folklore.

Historically, there were many signs that someone might be in danger of becoming a vampire after death. They may have cut their upper teeth before the lower ones as a child, for example. When the newly dead body was left out under vigil, a cat may have leaped over it, or a bat flown over the corpse.

Even as recently as 2004, Romanian police investigated the desecration of a grave in a remote village in the south of Transylvania. Petre Toma died in 2003 without any traditional signs of suspected vampirism, but his niece began to suffer from nightmares and her health declined. She claimed that her uncle visited her at night to drink from her heart and that he was a strigoi, Romanian for a troubled spirit arising from the grave, or a vampire. Toma’s brother decided to implement the rituals he believed necessary to prevent Petre from rising again from the grave.

In order to not act within the twelve days of Christmas, he waited until January 8th before checking his brother’s corpse and determining him to be a strigoi indeed. Six men exhumed the body at midnight and cut open the chest with a scythe. They removed the heart, held it high overhead, skewered on a pitchfork, and took it into town. They charred the heart and stuffed glowing embers into the ventricles. While the heart burned, they held it up into the night sky, catching the charred flakes it shed in a tea towel. They ground the flakes and mixed the resulting powder in water. After the niece drank it, she claimed she felt much better and was cured.

Until not long ago, this was apparently a common practice in the small towns and villages in and around Transylvania, and would have gone unspoken of and unknown to the rest of the world. However, one of Toma’s daughters, who had married an urbanite, was understandably outraged. She called the police and gave a complete account to the media, and the culprits were charged with desecration.

This example shows how some people of the region still cling to their superstitions and rituals. One can imagine how the people of Transylvania must have treated reports of vampirism at the time of Bram Stoker’s publication. Such a powerful mythos makes for extraordinary gothic fiction, as Stoker’s Dracula demonstrates.

THE MASTERPIECE

A young English lawyer, Jonathan Harker, travels to Castle Dracula in the mysterious eastern European region of Transylvania to finalize a real estate transaction. Count Dracula is moving to England and needs Harker to assist in the purchase of an English estate. Before arriving at his destination, as Harker is taking in the picturesque countryside, local peasants warn him of danger, giving him crucifixes and charms and uttering a strange phrase that Harker later translates into vampire.

Still, Harker boards the Count’s carriage, avoids a savage attack from ferocious wolves, and arrives at the deteriorating Castle Dracula. Upon their first meeting, Harker finds Dracula to be a well-educated and hospitable elderly gentleman. After a few days in the castle, however, Harker realizes he has become a prisoner. He discovers that Count Dracula possesses supernatural powers, and narrowly escapes seduction and death at the hands of three beautiful female vampires.

Harker risks a daring escape by climbing down the castle walls. The story follows Harker’s accounts via his journal and letters to his fiancée, Mina Murray, as well as the accounts of several other characters and newspaper articles regarding the horrifying events to follow.

After years of research in the London Library, Stoker produced over a hundred pages of notes delving deeply into Transylvanian folklore and history. However, these extensive notes mention neither Vlad III nor Countess Báthory, offering legitimacy to the theories that Stoker drew little from those historical figures.

Gathering visual inspiration from his surroundings in Cruden Bay and at Slains Castle, Stoker wrote the early chapters of Dracula in 1895. Stoker and his family would spend the next two summers at the Kilmarnock Arms Hotel, where he worked diligently on his new project until its publication in 1897.

Florence, Stoker’s widow, sold his notes to a New York book dealer in 1913 for next to nothing. The notes changed hands again, becoming the property of New York-based publisher Charles Scribner’s Sons. The notes didn’t surface again until 1970 when they were purchased by the Rosenbach Museum and Library.

According to his notes, Stoker had always intended Dracula to be an epistolary novel, meaning the narrative is wholly made up of characters’ journal entries, letters, and newspaper articles. However, Stoker originally intended to set the story in Styria, a state in southeast Austria, instead of Transylvania, the former Hungarian territory now in Romania, and the word vampire would never have appeared in this version.

Stoker’s notes shed light on much of the early iterations of Dracula. For example, Stoker knew he wanted his vampire antagonist to be a count well before he chose the name Dracula. Stoker wrote, Dracula means devil. Wallachians were accustomed to give it as a surname to any person who rendered himself conspicuous by courage, cruel actions, or cunning.

Due to his extensive research, Stoker was pretty close to the mark. Dracula means son of Dracul. In modern-day Romanian, Dracul means the devil–drac is devil, ul is the– but it is derived from the Latin draco, meaning dragon. Dragons, serpents, and serpentine dragons known as wyrms have historically been associated with Satan. So the evolution of the word is easily traced through ancient history, to the middle ages when Vlad III Dracula and then Erzsébet Báthory Dracula took the name for their own. And finally, in the late 19th century, Stoker adopted this infamous name for his masterful antagonist.

In reality, Dracula means son of the devil, which I believe is close enough, given Stoker’s limited resources of the time.

Stoker’s initial plans for Dracula distinctly differ from the final novel. Initially, a German professor, Max Windshoeffel, would have confronted Count Wampyr from Styria. Also, a werewolf would have killed one of the Crew of Light, and the novel would have been a detective story following a detective named Cotford and a psychical investigator named Singleton, parapsychology being the study of alleged psychic phenomena and other paranormal claims.

Despite some contrary directions in the early phases, Dracula was received positively by many reviewers. Those who wrote negatively about the novel regarded it as excessively frightening. Achieving a certain level of horror was undoubtedly Stoker’s intention, so he must have also been glad to read these negative reviews.

The novel’s central conflict arises when the horrifying Count Dracula travels to England by ship, nailed into a crate full of soil, to allow him to cross water. The powerful vampire preys on the novel’s protagonists until they vow to destroy him—not only to remove this significant threat from their community but to extinguish Dracula’s evil from the world forever.

The protagonists are driven to kill Count Dracula by a sense of duty to their nation, region, and Christianity. Dracula threatens Christian life by transforming devout followers of the faith into unholy agents of darkness like himself.

The first victim of such corruption is the beautiful Lucy Westerna, Mina Murray’s friend in the seaside village of Whitby. Lucy becomes increasingly ill, baffling her friends, family, and medical professionals. Dr. Seward invites Professor Abraham Van Helsing to attend to Lucy as he is educated in modern science and old-world superstitions. He hangs garlic around Lucy’s room, and, for a time, Lucy shows improvement until her mother removes the pungent cloves from her room without understanding their significance. As a result, Lucy is vulnerable to another attack. The protagonists discover her near death, and Van Helsing attempts blood transfusions unsuccessfully.

Lucy finally dies soon to rise again as a vampire. After Van Helsing and Dr. Seward confirm their suspicions, they enter the graveyard with Quincey Morris and Arthur Holmwood to mercifully release Lucy from her vampiric state by driving a stake through her heart.

The protagonists vow to destroy Dracula, knowing what he is and the danger of their undertaking. They draw from Van Helsing’s extensive knowledge and the records that Mina compiled of the experience.

They set out, excluding Mina to protect her, to consecrate the boxes of earth Dracula requires to rest during the day. When they find Renfield, Dr. Seward’s patient and a loyal servant to Dracula, mortally wounded, they discover Mina is in trouble. With his dying breath, Renfield reveals he granted Dracula access to Dr. Seward’s asylum, where Mina is staying.

They rush to the asylum to find Dracula in Mina’s room. They manage to drive the vampire out with crucifixes, but Van Helsing knows Mina will transform into a vampire unless they slay Count Dracula. Although Mina has suffered the same corruption as Lucy, this time, the protagonists know what must be done to prevent Mina’s transformation.

When Mina discovers she shares a mental connection with Count Dracula, she undergoes hypnosis to learn the vampire’s movements and whereabouts. They find out Dracula is escaping by boat, and they follow him to chase him across Europe. They reach Castle Dracula before Count Dracula, and Van Helsing ritualistically kills the three brides of Dracula by staking them down, removing their heads, and stuffing their mouths with garlic. This process takes him all day.

The protagonists ambush the gypsy caravan Count Dracula hired to transport him in his coffin back to his castle. During the battle, Quincey Morris plunges his bowie knife into Dracula’s heart, killing him. Morris is also severely wounded in the fight and dies shortly after the battle.

Once all is settled, the protagonists go on to live their lives. Jonathan and Mina Harker name their son Quincey in gratitude for Morris’s courageous deeds.

Stoker’s novel is masterful throughout, and his character design is noteworthy and exceptional. By having his characters react to these extraordinary situations in a way only the very courageous would, Stoker simultaneously establishes a connection and a very disconnecting question: Would I do as Jonathan Harker, Quincey Morris, or Abraham Van Helsing did, or would I run away and hide?

Each of his characters is relatable and believable, even Renfield the lunatic. In exchange for the promise of immortality and a continuous supply of insects to eat (whose souls he also absorbs), R.M. Renfield serves his master, Count Dracula, fanatically. By developing a character that is so blindly devoted and insane, Stoker calls attention to a fear not many would expect to find in a novel about vampires: the eventual deterioration of the human mind.

Providing readers with a window into life at that time, Stoker’s themes bring attention to the concerns of the Victorian era: the promise of Christian salvation, the threat of female sexual expression, madness, money, the fear of outsiders, and the consequences of modernity, the latter of which I believe to be the most relatable theme for us now, at the beginning of the 21st century.

Unless my senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have, powers of their own which mere ‘modernity’ cannot kill, writes Harker, as he grows uncomfortable with his lodgings at Castle Dracula. The drastic developments of the Victorian era were a central concern and Darwinism, for instance, brought religious teachings into question. Stoker satiates a reader’s thirst for a classically gothic setting by beginning the novel in a crumbling castle in Transylvania. Then, by moving the action to England, the author demonstrates that the modern advancements of contemporary civilization are primarily responsible for the ease at which Dracula preys on his victims.

For example, neither Mina nor Dr. Seward is prepared to deal with Lucy’s condition, though they are both devotees of modern scientific advancements. They must instead call upon Van Helsing for his knowledge of old-world superstitions and folklore.

Stoker’s chilling tone, settings, and rich characters in Dracula have inspired countless other fictional works since its release in 1897. Books, movies, TV shows, graphic novels, and satire have all been created over the years as an homage to Bram Stoker’s classic novel. I believe vampires in pop culture would have withered out of the public’s attention long ago if not for Dracula— that is, if vampires had taken a foothold to begin with.

Iconic films such as Nosferatu (1922), Dracula (1931), and Horror of Dracula (1958) would never have existed to influence the cinematic horror genre, and many of our contemporary favorites would not have featured vampires without them. Fright Night (1985), The Lost Boys (1987), Blade (1998), Queen of the Damned (2002), Van Helsing (2004), 30 Days of Night (2007), and Let the Right One In (2008) all owe their success to those earlier films and to Bram Stoker, who transformed vampires and the dark mysticism that surrounds them into a pop culture staple for generations to come.

I CAN THINK OF NO OTHER NOVEL THAT HAS HAD SUCH A LASTING IMPACT ON LITERATURE AND POP CULTURE THAN BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA.

CHAPTER I

JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL

(Kept in shorthand.)

3 May. 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. Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. I feared to go very far from the station, as we had arrived late and would start as near the correct time as possible. The impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the East; the most western of splendid bridges over the Danube, which is here of noble width and depth, took us among the traditions of Turkish rule.

We left in pretty good time, and came after nightfall to Klausenburgh. Here I stopped for the night at the Hotel Royale. I had for dinner, or rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was very good but thirsty. (Mem., get recipe for Mina.) I asked the waiter, and he said it was called paprika hendl, and that, as it was a national dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along the Carpathians. I found my smattering of German very useful here; indeed, I don’t know how I should be able to get on without it.

Having had some time at my disposal when in London, I had visited the British Museum, and made search among the books and maps in the library regarding Transylvania; it had struck me that some foreknowledge of the country could hardly fail to have some importance in dealing with a nobleman of that country. I find that the district he named is in the extreme east of the country, just on the borders of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia and Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathian mountains; one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe. I was not able to light on any map or work giving the exact locality of the Castle Dracula, as there are no maps of this country as yet to compare with our own Ordnance Survey maps; but I found that Bistritz, the post town named by Count Dracula, is a fairly well-known place. I shall enter here some of my notes, as they may refresh my memory when I talk over my travels with Mina.

In the population of Transylvania there are four distinct nationalities: Saxons in the South, and mixed with them the Wallachs, who are the descendants of the Dacians; Magyars in the West, and Szekelys in the East and North. I am going among the latter, who claim to be descended from Attila and the Huns. This may be so, for when the Magyars conquered the country in the eleventh century they found the Huns settled in it. I read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool; if so my stay may be very interesting. (Mem., I must ask the Count all about them.)

I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough, for I had all sorts of queer dreams. There was a dog howling all night under my window, which may have had something to do with it; or it may have been the paprika, for I had to drink up all the water in my carafe, and was still thirsty. Towards morning I slept and was wakened by the continuous knocking at my door, so I guess I must have been sleeping soundly then. I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize flour which they said was mamaliga, and egg-plant stuffed with forcemeat, a very excellent dish, which they call impletata. (Mem., get recipe for this also.) I had to hurry breakfast, for the train started a little before eight, or rather it ought to have done so, for after rushing to the station at 7:30 I had to sit in the carriage for more than an hour before we began to move. It seems to me that the further east you go the more unpunctual are the trains. What ought they to be in China?

All day long we seemed to dawdle through a country which was full of beauty of every kind. Sometimes we saw little towns or castles on the top of steep hills such as we see in old missals; sometimes we ran by rivers and streams which seemed from the wide stony margin on each side of them to be subject to great floods. It takes a lot of water, and running strong, to sweep the outside edge of a river clear. At every station there were groups of people, sometimes crowds, and in all sorts of attire. Some of them were just like the peasants at home or those I saw coming through France and Germany, with short jackets and round hats and home-made trousers; but others were very picturesque. The women looked pretty, except when you got near them, but they were very clumsy about the waist. They had all full white sleeves of some kind or other, and most of them had big belts with a lot of strips of something fluttering from them like the dresses in a ballet, but of course there were petticoats under them. The strangest figures we saw were the Slovaks, who were more barbarian than the rest, with their big cow-boy hats, great baggy dirty-white trousers, white linen shirts, and enormous heavy leather belts, nearly a foot wide, all studded over with brass nails. They wore high boots, with their trousers tucked into them, and had long black hair and heavy black moustaches. They are very picturesque, but do not look prepossessing. On the stage they would be set down at once as some old Oriental band of brigands. They are, however, I am told, very harmless and rather wanting in natural self-assertion.

It was on the dark side of twilight when we got to Bistritz, which is a very interesting old place. Being practically on the frontier—for the Borgo Pass leads from it into Bukovina—it has had a very stormy existence, and it certainly shows marks of it. Fifty years ago a series of great fires took place, which made terrible havoc on five separate occasions. At the very beginning of the seventeenth century it underwent a siege of three weeks and lost 13,000 people, the casualties of war proper being assisted by famine and disease.

Count Dracula had directed me to go to the Golden Krone Hotel, which I found, to my great delight, to be thoroughly old-fashioned, for of course I wanted to see all I could of the ways of the country. I was evidently expected, for when I got near the door I faced a cheery-looking elderly woman in the usual peasant dress—white undergarment with long double apron, front, and back, of coloured stuff fitting almost too tight for modesty. When I came close she bowed and said, The Herr Englishman? Yes, I said, Jonathan Harker. She smiled, and gave some message to an elderly man in white shirt-sleeves, who had followed her to the door. He went, but immediately returned with a letter:—

"My Friend.—Welcome to the Carpathians. I am anxiously expecting you. Sleep well to-night. At three to-morrow the diligence will start for Bukovina; a place on it is kept for you. At the Borgo Pass my carriage will await you and will bring you to me. I trust that your journey from London has been a happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land.

"Your friend,

"

Dracula

."

4 May.—I found that my landlord had got a letter from the Count, directing him to secure the best place on the coach for me; but on making inquiries as to details he seemed somewhat reticent, and pretended that he could not understand my German. This could not be true, because up to then he had understood it perfectly; at least, he answered my questions exactly as if he did. He and his wife, the old lady who had received me, looked at each other in a frightened sort of way. He mumbled out that the money had been sent in a letter, and that was all he knew. When I asked him if he knew Count Dracula, and could tell me anything of his castle, both he and his wife crossed themselves, and, saying that they knew nothing at all, simply refused to speak further. It was so near the time of starting that I had no time to ask any one else, for it was all very mysterious and not by any means comforting.

Just before I was leaving, the old lady came up to my room and said in a very hysterical way:

Must you go? Oh! young Herr, must you go? She was in such an excited state that she seemed to have lost her grip of what German she knew, and mixed it all up with some other language which I did not know at all. I was just able to follow her by asking many questions. When I told her that I must go at once, and that I was engaged on important business, she asked again:

Do you know what day it is? I answered that it was the fourth of May. She shook her head as she said again:

Oh, yes! I know that! I know that, but do you know what day it is? On my saying that I did not understand, she went on:

It is the eve of St. George’s Day. Do you not know that to-night, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway? Do you know where you are going, and what you are going to? She was in such evident distress that I tried to comfort her, but without effect. Finally she went down on her knees and implored me not to go; at least to wait a day or two before starting. It was all very ridiculous but I did not feel comfortable. However, there was business to be done, and I could allow nothing to interfere with it. I therefore tried to raise her up, and said, as gravely as I could, that I thanked her, but my duty was imperative, and that I must go. She then rose and dried her eyes, and taking a crucifix from her neck offered it to me. I did not know what to do, for, as an English Churchman, I have been taught to regard such things as in some measure idolatrous, and yet it seemed so ungracious to refuse an old lady meaning so well and in such a state of mind. She saw, I suppose, the doubt in my face, for she put the rosary round my neck, and said, For your mother’s sake, and went out of the room. I am writing up this part of the diary whilst I am waiting for the coach, which is, of course, late; and the crucifix is still round my neck. Whether it is the old lady’s fear, or the many ghostly traditions of this place, or the crucifix itself, I do not know, but I am not feeling nearly as easy in my mind as usual. If this book should ever reach Mina before I do, let it bring my good-bye. Here comes the coach!

5 May. The Castle.—The grey of the morning has passed, and the sun is high over the distant horizon, which seems jagged, whether with trees or hills I know not, for it is so far off that big things and little are mixed. I am not sleepy, and, as I am not to be called till I awake, naturally I write till sleep comes. There are many odd things to put down, and, lest who reads them may fancy that I dined too well before I left Bistritz, let me put down my dinner exactly. I dined on what they called robber steak—bits of bacon, onion, and beef, seasoned with red pepper, and strung on sticks and roasted over the fire, in the simple style of the London cat’s meat! The wine was Golden Mediasch, which produces a queer sting on the tongue, which is, however, not disagreeable. I had only a couple of glasses of this, and nothing else.

When I got on the coach the driver had not taken his seat, and I saw him talking with the landlady. They were evidently talking of me, for every now and then they looked at me, and some of the people who were sitting on the bench outside the door—which they call by a name meaning word-bearer—came and listened, and then looked at me, most of them pityingly. I could hear a lot of words often repeated, queer words, for there were many nationalities in the crowd; so I quietly got my polyglot dictionary from my bag and looked them out. I must say they were not cheering to me, for amongst them were Ordog—Satan, pokol—hell, stregoica—witch, vrolok and vlkoslak—both of which mean the same thing, one being Slovak and the other Servian for something that is either were-wolf or vampire. (Mem., I must ask the Count about these superstitions)

When we started, the crowd round the inn door, which had by this time swelled to a considerable size, all made the sign of the cross and pointed two fingers towards me. With some difficulty I got a fellow-passenger to tell me what they meant; he would not answer at first, but on learning that I was English, he explained that it was a charm or guard against the evil eye. This was not very pleasant for me, just starting for an unknown place to meet an unknown man; but every one seemed so kind-hearted, and so sorrowful, and so sympathetic that I could not but be touched. I shall never forget the last glimpse which I had of the inn-yard and its crowd of picturesque figures, all crossing themselves, as they stood round the wide archway, with its background of rich foliage of oleander and orange trees in green tubs clustered in the centre of the yard. Then our driver, whose wide linen drawers covered the whole front of the box-seat—gotza they call them—cracked his big whip over his four small horses, which ran abreast, and we set off on our journey.

I soon lost sight and recollection of ghostly fears in the beauty of the scene as we drove along, although had I known the language, or rather languages, which my fellow-passengers were speaking, I might not have been able to throw them off so easily. Before us lay a green sloping land full of forests and woods, with here and there steep hills, crowned with clumps of trees or with farmhouses, the blank gable end to the road. There was everywhere a bewildering mass of fruit blossom—apple, plum, pear, cherry; and as we drove by I could see the green grass under the trees spangled with the fallen petals. In and out amongst these green hills of what they call here the Mittel Land ran the road, losing itself as it swept round the grassy curve, or was shut out by the straggling ends of pine woods, which here and there ran down the hillsides like tongues of flame. The road was rugged, but still we seemed to fly over it with a feverish haste. I could not understand then what the haste meant, but the driver was evidently bent on losing no time in reaching Borgo Prund. I was told that this road is in summertime excellent, but that it had not yet been put in order after the winter snows. In this respect it is different from the general run of roads in the Carpathians, for it is an old tradition that they are not to be kept in too good order. Of old the Hospadars would not repair them, lest the Turk should think that they were preparing to bring in foreign troops, and so hasten the war which was always really at loading point.

Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians themselves. Right and left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon them and bringing out all the glorious colours of this beautiful range, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and brown where grass and rock mingled, and an endless perspective of jagged rock and pointed crags, till these were themselves lost in the distance, where the snowy peaks rose grandly. Here and there seemed mighty rifts in the mountains, through which, as the sun began to sink, we saw now and again the white gleam of falling water. One of my companions touched my arm as we swept round the base of a hill and opened up the lofty, snow-covered peak of a mountain, which seemed, as we wound on our serpentine way, to be right before us:—

Look! Isten szek!—God’s seat!—and he crossed himself