Publisher's Synopsis
About the novel
- Dracula is an 1897 Gothic horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to move from Transylvania to England so he may find new blood and spread the undead curse, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing.
- Dracula has been assigned to many literary genres including vampire literature, horror fiction, the gothic novel and invasion literature. Although Stoker did not invent the vampire, he defined its modern form, and the novel has spawned numerous theatrical, film and television interpretations.
- Bram Stoker (1847-1912) was born in Dublin. After attending Dublin University, he spent ten years as an Irish civil servant, trying to keep up his writing in his free time. By 1871, he had become the drama critic for the Dublin Mail and had gained experience as a newspaper editor, reporter, and short story writer.
- In 1878 he became the personal assistant to Sir Henry Irving, the foremost Shakespearean actor of his day, accompanying him on tours and managing Irving's theater. After Irving's death in 1905, Stoker worked on the literary staff of the London Telegraph. Dracula, his most famous work, was published in 1897.
- Bram Stoker's Dracula established many conventions of the subsequent vampire fantasy genre. This gothic fiction tells the tale of Count Dracula's transition from Transylvania to England and his attempt to spread the undead curse and of the battle between Dracula and Professor Abraham Van Helsing.
- In the last several decades, literary and cultural scholars have offered diverse analyses of Stoker's novel and the character of Count Dracula. C.F. Bentley reads Dracula as an embodiment of the Freudian id Carol A. Senf reads the novel as a response to the New Woman archetype, while Christopher Craft sees Dracula as embodying latent homosexuality and sees the text as an example of a 'characteristic, if hyperbolic instance of Victorian anxiety over the potential fluidity of gender roles'.
- Stephen D. Arata interprets the events of the novel as anxiety over colonialism and racial mixing, and Talia Schaffer construes the novel as an indictment of Oscar Wilde. Franco Moretti reads Dracula as a figure of monopoly capitalism, though Hollis Robbins suggests that Dracula's inability to participate in social conventions and to forge business partnerships undermines his power. Richard Noll reads Dracula within the context of 19th century alienism (psychiatry) and asylum medicine. D. Bruno Starrs understands the novel to be a pro-Catholic pamphlet promoting proselytization. Dracula is one of Five Books most recommended books with literary scholars, science writers and novelists citing it as an influential text for topics such as sex in Victorian Literature, best horror books and criminology.
- Dracula is a work of fiction, but it does contain some historical references; although it is a matter of conjecture and debate as to how much historical connection was deliberate on Stoker's part.
- During his main reign (1456-1462), "Vlad the Impaler" is said to have killed from 40,000 to 100,000 European civilians (political rivals, criminals, and anyone that he considered "useless to humanity"), mainly by impaling. The sources depicting these events are records by Saxon settlers in neighbouring Transylvania who had frequent clashes with Vlad III.
