Dracula
Bram Stoker
Held by Long Room, Trinity Collegeread here
Read it here about 12 h of reading
Add to a shelf
Told through journals, letters, telegrams and newspaper clippings, Dracula follows the solicitor Jonathan Harker to a Transylvanian castle, where he finds that his client Count Dracula is a vampire. The Count sails to England and settles near London, and in Whitby he preys on Lucy Westenra. Harker, his wife Mina, Dr. Seward, Lord Godalming, Quincey Morris and the Dutch scholar Van Helsing track him, destroy his earth-filled boxes of soil and chase him back across Europe to his own country.
Where it happens
- Transylvania Harker's journey takes him to the Count's castle here.1
- Whitby The seaside town where Dracula lands in England; Stoker also researched here in 1890.1
- London Where Dracula settles and where Stoker did most of his research at the London Library.1
- Dublin Stoker studied at Trinity College Dublin and served in the civil service at Dublin Castle.2
- Galatz The Black Sea port where the hunters learn that the Count's ship has arrived.3
Through time
Who is in it, and behind it
Bram Stoker author
Irish writer (1847 to 1912), barrister and manager of the Lyceum Theatre for Henry Irving.2
Count Dracula character
The Transylvanian nobleman who is revealed as a vampire and moves to England.1
Jonathan Harker character
The English solicitor who visits the Count's castle on business.1
Abraham Van Helsing character
The scholar who leads the group that hunts the Count.1
Henry Irving patron
The actor Stoker worked for as personal assistant and Lyceum business manager.2
Edith Craig subject
She played Mina at Stoker's copyright reading of a stage version at the Lyceum.1
Archibald Constable and Company printer
The publisher that issued the first edition in May 1897.1
What it is about
Story told in documents
The narrative comes through letters, diaries and newspaper articles and has no single protagonist.1
Invented vampire rules
Stoker added traits such as needing an invitation, sleeping on native earth and having no reflection.1
Folklore meets modern England
An old-world nobleman moves into a London suburb and has to be fought with science and sacred objects.1
In its own words
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
“Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will!” He made no motion of stepping to meet me, but stood like a statue, as though his gesture of welcome had fixed him into stone
“Listen to them—the children of the night. What music they make!” Seeing, I suppose, some expression in my face strange to him, he added:— “Ah, sir, you dwellers in the city cannot enter into the feelings of the hunter
At times the mist cleared, and the sea for some distance could be seen in the glare of the lightning, which now came thick and fast, followed by such sudden peals of thunder that the whole sky overhead seemed trembling under the shock of the footsteps of the storm
“Then it was you, and just arrived. How is she? Are we too late? Did you not get my telegram
a sacred bullet fired into the coffin kill him so that he be true dead; and as for the stake through him, we know already of its peace; or the cut-off head that giveth rest
I had to give in, for Mina’s resolution was fixed; she said that it was the last hope for her that we should all work together
I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution, there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there
The shape of the book
29 chapters, 160,545 words. Point at a bar.
How it came to be here
Stoker, an Irish theatre manager, began his notes in 1890 and drew on research done at Whitby and in the London Library. He found the name Dracula in a history of Wallachia and Moldavia. Archibald Constable published the novel in May 1897 in yellow cloth for six shillings. Reviews were good, but it earned Stoker little money. Stoker invented several vampire traits that later fiction kept, including the need for an invitation and the lack of a reflection. This site carries the Standard Ebooks text.
Sources
Text: Standard Ebooks edition, transcribed from Project Gutenberg (161,105 words). Standard Ebooks markup CC0 1.0; text public domain in the USA.
Also from Long Room, Trinity College
- Book of Kellsc. 800TCD MS 58catalogue record
- Melmoth the WandererCharles Robert Maturinread here
- A Modest ProposalJonathan Swiftread here
- A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human KnowledgeGeorge Berkeleyread here
- A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and BeautifulEdmund Burkeread here
- Carmilla / In a Glass DarklyJ. Sheridan Le Fanuread here
- Gulliver's TravelsJonathan Swift1726read here
- The Vicar of WakefieldOliver Goldsmith1766read here