Book reviews

Text of this edition is based on the Yale University Library’s copy of the second printing of the first edition.

Chillingly terrifying, hotly erotic, powerfully suggestive and redolent with the scent and taste of innocence debauched and beauty corrupted, this is the most terrifying vampire novel ever written – and in my view, one of the most genuinely terrifying novels of any genre ever penned. It is also a work of literary art, and can be compared to few novels which create such a spine-crawling effect and such lingering images in the mind long after having read the last page.

The characters are familiar to most people, even those who have not read the novel: there is young Jonathan Harker, a solicitor who has been charged with finding a suitable house for the immensely rich Count Dracula of Transylvania; there is his betrothed, Mina Murray, a capable and courageous young lady who plays a major part in the events to come; there is her beautiful friend, Lucy Westenra, whose part is one of tragedy; there is Dr Seward, head of a lunatic asylum and in love with Lucy; there is Arthur Holmwood, Lucy’s successful suitor; there is Doctor Van Helsing, whose knowledge of Dracula and of folk-tales leads him to suspect something terrible; there is the insane Renfield, whose mental illness is like the distorted and weak mirror of the real vampire; and there is that dreadful vampire himself, Count Dracula, surely the most shudder-worthy villain who ever rose from the dust of pages.

Jonathan Harker’s visit to the Count’s castle is initially full of old-fashioned courtesies, but everything becomes increasingly disturbing, until the truth dawns on him – he is a prisoner, unable to leave, and dreading the meaning behind his captivity. Although he manages to escape, his ordeal was only the beginning of the horrifying events that will occur when the Count arrives in England upon the Demeter, a ship whose crew will not survive to tell the tale of the dreadful cargo they carried.

Bram Stoker’s writing is full of vivid imagery, and his touch for characterisation is sure. His use of the epistolary device is apt and very cleverly maintained between the diary sections, bringing the thoughts and actions of the characters very much to the forefront and thus appearing more tender and more terrible by this means. The tension is built inexorably and with great deftness, as the story moves from exhileration to disquiet, from sweetness to repulsion to hope to despair to one final and desperate bid for victory over the monster who rules so hideously over the pages of this book.

There are striking passages that will remain in one’s memory – “… I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over that dreadful abyss, face down, with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings. At first I could not believe my eyes. I thought it was some trick of the moonlight, some weird effect of shadow; but I kept looking, and it could be no delusion. I saw the fingers and toes grasp the corners of the stones, worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years, and by thus using every projection and inequality move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves along a wall.”

And “… such a silvery, musical laugh, but as hard as though the sound never could have come through the softness of human lips. It was like the intolerable, tingling sweetness of water-glasses when played on by a cunning hand… The fair girl advanced and bent over me till I could feel the movement of her breath upon me. Sweet it was in one sense, honey-sweet, and sent the same tingling through the nerves as her voice, but with a bitter underlying the sweet, a bitter offensiveness, as one smells in blood.”

The castle in that final desperate chase is wonderfully evoked with a single sentence: “The Castle of Dracula now stood out against the red sky, and every stone of its broken battlements was articulated against the light of the setting sun.”

Bram Stoker researched the historical and geographical details necessary for his novel with fervour, and used the information to give it an all-too-real verisimilitude; train timetables, street names, the Carpathian mountains, the food of Transylvania, all is written with immaculate detail. And Leonard Wolf’s careful and loving edition (copiously footnoted) includes recipes for all the meals mentioned in the novel, as well as much fascinating information related to the text. This edition is utterly superb, and also includes the original first chapter of the novel, now published separately as a short piece called Dracula’s Guest.

For everyone who has played the Gabriel Knight games, for everyone who is interested in the mysterious or gothic novel, for everyone who is moved by the motives of the human heart and the subtleties of human imagination, Dracula is not to be missed. Recommended without hesitation.