Book Summary and Reviews of Dracula by Bram Stoker

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Dracula

Unabridged and Fully Illustrated

by Bram Stoker

  • Readers' Rating (2):
  • Published:
  • Mar 2021, 280 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

During a business visit to Count Dracula's castle in Transylvania, a young English solicitor finds himself at the center of a series of horrifying incidents.

Jonathan Harker is attacked by three phantom women, observes the Count's transformation from human to bat form, and discovers puncture wounds on his own neck that seem to have been made by teeth. Harker returns home upon his escape from Dracula's grim fortress, but a friend's strange malady — involving sleepwalking, inexplicable blood loss, and mysterious throat wounds — initiates a frantic vampire hunt. The popularity of Bram Stoker's 1897 horror romance is as deathless as any vampire. Its supernatural appeal has spawned a host of film and stage adaptations, and more than a century after its initial publication, it continues to hold readers spellbound.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
  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...
Please be aware that this discussion may contain spoilers!

See what our members are saying about this book in our Community Forum.

It’s Halloween week! What’s your favorite scary novel?
I like some of the older ones: Bram Stoker's Dracula and The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.
-nick


What’s your favorite epistolary novel?
Last Christmas in Paris by Heather Webb and Hazel Gaynor, and Dracula by Bram Stoker. I can't believe I had never read Dracula before this fall.
-Cheri_Mcelroy

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This information about Dracula was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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More Information

Abraham (Bram) Stoker was an Irish writer, best known for his Gothic classic Dracula, which continues to influence horror writers and fans more than 100 years after it was first published. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, in science, mathematics, oratory, history, and composition, Stoker' s writing was greatly influenced by his father' s interest in theatre and his mother' s gruesome stories about her childhood during the cholera epidemic in 1832. Although a published author of the novels Dracula, The Lady of the Shroud, and The Lair of the White Worm, and his work as part of the literary staff of The London Daily Telegraph, Stoker made his living as the personal assistant of actor Henry Irving and the business manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London. Stoker died in 1912, leaving behind one of the most memorable horror characters ever created.

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