Tabs & Twists
Dracula
A Transylvanian count travels to England, and a small band of allies races to stop him, told entirely through letters, diaries and clippings.
- Genre
- Horror
- Subgenre
- GothicSupernatural horror
- Setting / Period
- Victorian England
- First published
- 1897
- Pages
- 418
- Language
- English
Review
Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania to help a nobleman buy property in London and slowly realizes he is a prisoner. Soon Count Dracula is in England, and Mina, Lucy and a group of determined men find themselves in a fight against something ancient.
The epistolary form is the book's secret weapon. Diary entries, telegrams and phonograph recordings create a documentary feel and let the dread build from several angles. The first chapters in the castle are among the finest horror writing ever done.
The middle sags a little and the Victorian attitudes toward women date badly, yet the central figure remains terrifying. Dracula is why the modern vampire exists, and it is still worth reading in the original.
