Some novelists write a great deal, and develop their art to a level of superlative achievement. Then there are those rare few who write much less, or very little at all, and yet manage to achieve smashing success in one great project. Bram Stoker belongs to the latter category. His novel Dracula remains perhaps the finest such creation ever written.
Stoker understood on some fundamental level that the invocation of horror has to rely on the creation of a mood, rather than on simple set-piece scenes. Everything has to contribute to that mood: words, names, locales, dialogues, even punctuation. All must advance to this crescendo of dread.
There was nothing in Bram Stoker’s background to suggest that he might be suited for horror literature. He did not, unlike H.P. Lovecraft, come from an old family over which an atmosphere of decay hovered, and neither was he sickly as a youth. And, unlike Edgar Allan Poe, he was not addicted to drugs or alcohol.
He was born in Dublin in 1847 of Irish parentage and was educated at Trinity College. Upon graduation from university he took a liking to the theater and served for a time as a critic of theatrical performances. He moved to London after his marriage in 1878 in order to be closer to the acting community.
From 1879 to 1898 he managed the famous Lyceum Theater. It was perhaps due to his familiarity with the stage that he developed a taste for dramatic flourishes in his writing.
It was in London that he came to work for perhaps the most famous actor of his generation, Henry Irving. With him Stoker traveled the world; he even managed to visit the White House on at least two occasions, and was introduced to both Theodore Roosevelt and William McKinley.
At some point during his travels, Stoker met a man who would have a fateful influence on his life: Armin Vambery, a Hungarian writer, linguist, and traveler. He may even have acted as a consultant on Dracula. Vembery was steeped in the ancient folklore of the Balkans and Eastern Europe, and was perhaps one of the first to advocate for a linguistic connection between the Hungarian and Turkish languages (it is now recognized that they are indeed distant relatives).
Theater work was time-consuming, but not necessarily lucrative. Stoker was naturally curious as a man of the world, and began to write in his spare time as a way of supplementing his income. His first efforts were of unsatisfactory. He had shown little previous aptitude for literary greatness, but, as so often happens in history, genius has a way of springing up in unlikely places.
In 1897 he published a novel he called Dracula. It was originally to be titled The Un-Dead, but Stoker changed it at the last minute. We cannot be sure, but it may have originally been intended as a stage play. By either name, it is the greatest Gothic horror novel ever written.
The action of the novel is cleverly conveyed using fragments from letters, diaries, and alleged “first-hand accounts.” The general course of the action is that an ancient “undead” vampire named Count Dracula wishes to escape from his confines in the Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania and move to a more populated city (London), where he can “infect” people with vampirism.
Following closely on his heels is the stern and steady Dr. Van Helsing, who knows what vampires are and how they can be destroyed.
The novel derives its extraordinary power from a number of different sources. It plays on our fears of infection and the spread of a weird disease that can take possession of our very souls. It plays on our fascination with sexual predation and unchecked carnal appetites. It plays on our innate revulsion at having our life-blood drained away by unseen forces. And on top of all these psychological underpinnings, it is great story: the pursuit and destruction of an ancient evil makes for a fine storyline.
In this passage, from the “journal” of Johnathan Harker, a visitor to Dracula’s castle, we get our first indication that the Count may be not quite human:
As I leaned from the window my eye was caught by something moving a storey below me, and somewhat to my left, where I imagined, from the order of the rooms, that the windows of the Count’s own room would look out…I drew back from the stonework, and looked carefully out. What I saw was the Count’s head coming out from the window…But my very feelings changed to revulsion and terror when I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over the dreadful abyss, face down with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings. At first I could not believe my eyes…
Of course, things only get worse for Harker and his friends.
How much Stoker knew about the historical Dracula, or about Easter European folklore in general, is still hotly debated. Dracula was not the first novel to have vampirism as its subject. These things matter little, however; noting in literature is completely original. The greatness lies in the writer’s ability to rework the raw material he has into a form that is compelling.
It is clear that Stoker was a wonderfully creative writer who blended preexisting myths of Vlad The Impaler, vampirism, Elizabeth Bathory, and Victorian popular fears in a way that was irresistible.
The novel was instantly successful and has never been out of print. But Stoker himself was dogged with bad luck. Perhaps Vlad Dracula himself had cursed him. Stoker, not a professional writer, had failed to copyright his work outside the United Kingdom. This was also the era before international treaties automatically took care of such things.
The appearance of the 1922 film Nosferatu was a definite copyright infringement; Stoker’s widow won that battle, but by then the Dracula legend had entered popular culture to such an extent that it had nearly become common property.
As an interesting side-note, the priceless original manuscript for the novel, long thought to be lost, was unearthed in a Pennsylvania barn in the 1980s. How the document came to reside in such a place has not been discussed in the articles I have found on the subject. It now is apparently owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, probably one of the few private parties in the world who could afford it.
If you are new to horror fiction, this is a great place to start. It has never been adequately filmed, in my opinion. Its special strengths and atmospheric intensity do make it ideal for a miniseries, and perhaps one day we will see it done justice on the screen.
Read More: Should You Live With Her?
I would second that all should read this novel. The themes here hit close to home, but it is unfortunate that such as Dracula could later spawn the teen-romance-angst sub-genre found in Interview with the Vampire, Buffy, and Twilight.
Vampires should never glitter….period.
Unless they are on fire……Larry Correia
i was a huge buffy fan when it was on TV, back in my 100% beta days. i wonder if i’d like it as much now if i were to revisit it.
Same here, and I did revisit it. After taking the red pill it forces the blinders off and will make you cringe concerning what you previously liked.
Buffy always annoyed me. Campy, silly show about some supergirl. Annoying.
Josh Whedon at his feminist dick sucking best though.
I actually cannot stand the modern interpretation of vampires. Basically now we have vampire soap operas. Awful. As far as I am concerned, vampires should remain evil, inhuman and diabolical. This is the true horror. A physically superior being that views you merely as an object to satisfy its hunger.
What we need is a “Walking Dead” of vampires. This is how vampires should be shown on screen. I Am Legend (the book not the movie) properly illustrates how vampires should be seen.
I am Legend (the book) was great. Another version of vampires that resonates with the same vibe is the 30 Days Of Night version.
30 Days was pretty disturbing.
I saw that. Not the best movie but the right interpretation. Salem’s Lot also (the book).
Ah. Salem’s Lot. I seem to have missed that one. I’ll put that on my list.
Yes. Had the right effect on me.
Read the book though, don’t bother with the movie.
exactly — i’m not even sure that the book is about repressed sexuality; seems to be a feminist interpretation of it, about an era that knew what sex could do when not properly channelled. The vampire exists only by destroying life, that’s why he’s evil.
Yeah, I mean the blood sucking is what makes them so terrifying. I had a nightmare the other day that I had this huge bleeding spot pouring out of my head, and it was quite upsetting. The modern vampire isn’t even seen drinking blood, but instead prefers to hang out with millennial chicks and act moody. Show some blood sucking, show some of the horror of the victims being kept restrained so they could slowly have their blood drained out of them. These modern things would be unrecognizable by Stoker.
It’s like the new “Lucifer” series. The elite always seem content to try and tell us what to believe. Today, the message seems to be “evil is merely misunderstood!”
Wow talk about an inversion of morality!
“Evil is merely misunderstood”. Hasn’t this always been the argument of Satan?
Vampirism as depicted in the Blade movies wasn’t bad either.
Vampires should always, first and foremost – see the living as food! Nothing more, nothing less.
Yeah I liked Blade.
After reading this article, I’ve come to the shocking realization that I’ve never read this novel in it’s entirety. (bows head in shame).
Don’t feel bad, I’ve tried getting through it several times but reading several people’s journals gets annoying.
Dracula is a good read. If you are into horror themed novels or just like good suspense writing in general I also recommend HP Lovecraft.
Some interesting facts about the character.
Vlad is short for Vladislav – it’s a popular Slavic name. His title was voivoda (bulgarian). His capital was called Turgovishte (meaning market town, chipping). The Wallachian nobility all had Bulgarian roots. They used Cyrillic, spoke Bulgarian up until the Napoleon wars.
The name Dracula is quite possible Stoker’s invention – form Latin draco, draconis meaning Dragon, Devil. His clan’s real name was Drag or Dragwlya, meaning valuable, dear, desired.
Source – https://books.google.ch/books?id=oOs-AQAAIAAJ&q=dragwlya&dq=dragwlya&hl=de&ei=7pZsTorzMonEsgbr8LTJBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result
In the legends he had a reputation of a cruel ruler. Many of those legends were exaggerated fabrications by the Transylvanian Saxons (Siebenburger Sachsen).
In reality he was a very successful ruler as he managed to clear his country of bandits and more importantly he resisted the Ottomans. Possibly because he used impaling as a “psychological warfare” – to terrorize the enemy coming to invade his country.”
In this German picture it is shown the real Vlad
http://nauka.bg/forum/uploads/monthly_05_2009/post-4727-1242842233.jpg
“…and more importantly he resisted the Ottomans.”
But then where did he rest his feet?
I get that he’s a slavic / romanian hero who fought against the turks, and that his reputation may have been exaggerated by malicious german propagandists but surely a lot of those tales have a basis? Those turkish emissaries, didn’t they have their turbans nailed down, didn’t those mass impalings genuinely occur (after all he learned the technique from the turks while he was a hostage at the sultan’s court I think). There are even some tales told about him which suggest Romanians were proud of how cruel he was: like the golden cup he left in the town square which absolutely no-one dared to steal because people were so scared of having a stick skewered up through their bottom. That’s a tale that is told to demonstrate how strong a leader Vlad Dracul was, not to detract from him by portraying him as an inhuman monster (which I’m still inclined to think he probably was, alongside his near contemporary Ivan the Terrible)
Hate to be the spelling Nazi….. but…
“How much Stoker knew about the historical Dracula, or about Easter European folklore in general,”
You mean Eastern. 🙂
Seig spelling!
You’re right, of course. We’ll fix that typo. Sometimes they get through. Like zips in the wire…
When archeologists dig up the server that ROK is hosted on, they’ll notice how this website is so lacking in spelling and grammar mistakes unlike “those other sites” that contributed to the reason why servers ended up in the rubble.
“Like zips in the wire…”
Nothing napalm wouldn’t take care of.
Don’t you mean ‘Sieg’ instead of ‘Seig’? You are a disgrace to the Reich.
into the Pit of Eternal Peril I go…..
But, but, Dracula brought doubleplusgood Diversity to London! Everyone knows that nothing can go wrong when you do that!
I think that if Stoker’s Dracula came to any city in the modern west and saw all the promiscuity and sluttishness he’d think twice about sucking anybody’s blood. Just try to picture some tall dark Christopher Lee type deigning to pierce the necks of some blue haired fatty with a personality disorder. Even if he was that literally thirsty he would never find a vein
All the tattoos would confuse him.
& the existing puncture marks
They’d look like they were already bitten by other vampires.
in a way they proably already were
He would go vegan just because leaves and twigs would be the only things he could eat.
When I discovered the existence of this movie it made me very happy.
Haha, nice find!
Vlad Dracula was a great man, and its a shame most people dont know about the inspiration behind the Dracula novel. You can argue about his brutality not being exaggerated, but having a fearsome reputation is an important force multiplier, and kept Wallachia (today Romania) from being a constant target of attacks. Especially since Muslims were even more savage back then than they are today.
Sweden needs Dracula right now.
Prince Marko of Serbia fighting an ottoman.
http://cs317529.userapi.com/v317529912/2591/fMnETsS0wVk.jpg
There’s not enough virgin blood left there to interest him in moving north.
You can always kick out the refugees but keep the virgins.
I think he is a misogynist. What’s wrong with 35+ extremely sexually experienced women who are comfortable at their own weight and who don’t need a man ? Wow..just wow !
I’m surprised the recent Dracula movie got made at all, considering
1) it portrayed the Muslims (specifically Turks) in less then flattering light, and
2) it portrayed said Turks getting wiped out.
there was peter jackson’s king kong a few years ago, with it’s 1930’s-style dark-skinned savages left pretty much entirely intact. hollywood surprises you sometimes.
Steve Jobs ex girlfriend was portrayed as a 100% money grubbing gold digging whiney obnoxious slut with no redeeming qualities in the recent Jobs film.
What recent Dracula movie?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0829150/
OK I remember it now. Kind of outside the tradition. Yeah I did read that Vlad utterly hated the Turks. He got the idea of impaling from them.
Vlad Tsepes aka Dracula aka Vlad the Impaler…kept the muslims out.
Dracula translated from the Irish Droch Ola means bad, diseased or feculent blood. Dracula and the entities he represents are cursed to spend their eternities feasting on the pure blood of humans. The terrible fate which Stoker illustrates so wonderfully is that of a being unable to live and unable to die. Dracula is condemned to an eternal existence in the shadows of the human world.
Dracula is a truly original literary motif, different of course to Shelly’s monster which is equally an entity that can still teach us lessons. However, where as Shelly’s monster points towards Man as a God vis-à-vis the power and potential of technology, Stoker’s Count points back towards domains and times more primeval, but oddly potent with fear that somehow exists just at the periphery of our modern sensibilities.
“Dracula” is a Romanian word.
I wasn’t able to slog through Dracula, but Frankenstein was an awesome novel.
I agree about Frankenstein. There’s something poignant and uncanny about the monster hiding in the farmer’s house, listening to the inhabitants as he tries to learn what it’s like to be human being.
Frankenstein’s monster isn’t evil unlike Dracula, and, there’s the distinct subtext in the novel that it’s only humanity’s fear and ignorance that turns him into a true monster. The tale is more relevant today than it was back in 1818.
it’s one of the more powerful books i’ve read. pretty frightening toward the end too.
” it’s only humanity’s fear and ignorance that turns him into a true monster”
Shhhh! Don’t tell the terrorist-loving leftists this.
agreed. Dracula is entirely nihilistic, existing completely and solely for his own pleasure, indifferent to the whims of god or man. Frankenstein is a portrayed as a sad, cold thing whois desperate to be accepted back into humanity. Both exist in a world beyond death, neither dead, nor undead. Dracula has learned to master this world, he is unfettered and 100% free, master of his own nature/destiny, a god in his own right. Frankenstein fights this world, an in so doing has become a slave to his all consuming desire to be accepted by humans which leads him to be 100% shunned, ridiculed and hounded from pillar to post.
they have both conquered death, but where Dracula wholeheartedly accepts his new reality, and ultimately becomes (for a time atleast) superior because of it ( think of the the quote, Lions lose no sleep, over the opinions of sheep). Frankenstein violently rejects his new reality, which ultimately leads to his downfall ( please like me, please be my friend).
Very good appraisal of the differences. The monster is our own mirror- it represents our arrogance, hubris, ignorance and the rule of the mob. He in a sense says much more about us through his estrangement and alienation.
Thank you.
Well, sympathy and understanding should not be just the preserve of the left. The Victorians were extremely conservative, but, they were curious, understanding and charitable too.
It’s very atmospheric throughout. Mary Shelly wrote it over the course of a few weeks. It’s hard to imagine anyone writing a classic like that in such a condensed period of time these days.
The difference is that conservatives / “the right” expect people to improve in their behavior when helped.
Have you seen “Young Frankenstein” the movie?? Hilarious spoof…
It’s a hoot.
Dracula means “son of the devil” as his dad was named Dracul. It was a moniker for Vlad Tsepes the real name of Dracula whose dad was Vlad Dracul hence his son was named Dracula. Dracula /Vlad was a prince of Wallachia which is now modern day Romania .
I believe dracul= dragon. dracula ( the dimunitive) means son of the dragon. in old romanian
hmm ok. makes more sense who’d want to be named “Devil ” and “son of the Devil”…
Read this in middle school . This article has made me want to re read . Will buy tommorow
I actually just finished that one a few weeks ago & didn’t like it. Van Helsing and Dracula himself are interesting, otherwise I found it to be too black-&-white good-guys-vs-bad-guys.
Personally I like the saga of Vlad Tepes more. I’m surprised the Christians opposing ISIS haven’t taken him as a hero or mascot.
There ARE some in the Carpathians who pray for his return.
They have lived under Christian theocracies, lived under Communism and lived under Islam.
Living under a Vampire doesn’t seem all that bad.
“There ARE some in the Carpathians who pray for his return.
“They have lived under Christian theocracies, lived under Communism and lived under Islam.
“Living under a Vampire doesn’t seem all that bad.”
Autocratic monarchy in synergy with Orthodox theocracy is as good as earthly government gets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUwxXO0-gqk
Lyudmila Putina Once Called Her Husband a Vampire:
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/lyudmila-putina-once-called-her-husband-a-vampire/481294.html
“Unfortunately, he is a vampire,” Lyumila Putina said jokingly of her husband, according to the German-language book.
Pietsch also wrote that Lyumila had a fondness for astrology that did not rest well with her husband, who shushed her when she started talking about zodiac signs.
[…]
Pietsch said Lyudmila Putin described her husband as just the right man for her — he didn’t drink and he didn’t beat her.
However, she fretted about him spending too much time with his friends in the evenings — social gatherings at which she had to serve drinks, gherkins and fish, Pietsch wrote.
Lyudmila also complained about German men rousing their wives early every morning to prepare their husbands’ breakfasts because her Volodya started making similar demands after visiting Germany.
He’s a national hero in Bulgaria and Romania, but those countries (and others) have endured centuries of Muslim rule (which is part of the reason countries in that part of the world have reacted to the ‘migrants’).
More of this……
Vlad and his family belonged to a military order “order of the Dragon” whose sole purpose was to fight the Turks…
Except his brother Radu who actually became Muslim and sided with the Ottomans. And you think thought you had family issues…
Bela. Lagosi.
I hear that he’s dead.
Great stuff, as usual, QC. I’ve read theories that Dracula was written as a sort of commentary on the prevalence of syphilis in Victorian Europe. Impure diseases of the blood and all that. Of course, the women in Dracula are attracted to the ultimate bad boy alpha, rather than the trio of betas that are pursuing Lucy.
Yes, good point. It also played on Victorian “invasion” fears, which were also exploited by H.G. Wells in “War of the Worlds.”
It is also rumored that Stoker died of syphilis, but it is not confirmed.
I’d like to know how his original manuscript made it to Pennsylvania.
Stoker has a great, great ,great nephew who lives in the USA.Last name is Stoker and wrote a vamp book…
Vlad went to war for God and Country.
When he returned his bride (or fiance, depends on which version you read) was dead and he went to war for her soul. At this point he defied the Church over her burial.
He defied God for the woman he loved.
He defied Death.
He endured 700+ years of Earthly Purgatory as Undead and when he was faced with an opportunity to reunite with her … he passed rather than condemn her to his misery.
Was he beta, or a genuine lover?
That’s the Copolla movie, not the novel. Nowhere in Stoker’s book was Dracula in love with anyone, or of having any redeeming values himself. He was a fiend. Which is how I prefer it. Vampires should be foul creatures, not sparkly, sexy, misunderstood metrosexuals that screw as many people as they bite. I want my monsters back. I wan’t Stoker’s vampire to bust into Anne Rice’s house, slap the sh*t out of her, and make her eat cockroaches for a century in payment for giving us that franchise. And Stephanie Meyer: your chubby ass is next. The Count’s a’comin’.
It’s difficult to separate the movie from the novel from the legend from history.
The historical Vlad III is revered as a folk hero in Romania and Bulgaria as a warrior who defended his homeland.
The legends of the Vampire prior to the novel are myriad.
And he defended Christendom from Islam no less. What would he think of the refugees hm?
Ann Rice… Read her books in HS and thought they were ok, but didn’t realize how much she destroyed horror until later. Every nihilist chick and beta who read her books wanted to be “vampires.” Pointed out that you are murdering people to feed did not seem to bother them one bit.
Interesting- how did she destroy horror? Am I the only one who thinks the seductive vampire is more dangerous than the the straight up monstrous vampire? The first two of her novels(Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat) were great reads
I think by its very nature, the idea of the vampire, monstrous or sensual, is seductive. He represents a universal longing, to conquer death and live forever.
I agree. I posted the some thing in response to an above post to cheesburgercheesburger.
Vampires make such a great analogy for leftist ideology: blood-sucking parasites who infect society with their orgy of lust and death.
And..they appear normal at first sight.
And never seem to die no matter how many times you give them a good killin’.
Only a silver bullet GoJ.
Those only work on Werewolves I’m afraid. Vampires need a proper wooden stake through the heart, and then buried with their head cut off and mouth stuffed with garlic. Or so I hear.
You forgot the holy water and crucifix or does that just subdue them for the kill?
The crucifix can sometimes hold them at bay and holy water burns the. . .sort of like logic and leftists.
Just finished re-reading it. I read it every few years before Halloween. It should be in any collection of classics. Definitely belongs in the western canon (along with Frankenstein and Jeckyll/Hyde). While I loved the Coppola version, I’ve never been able to square his attempt to make a romance out of it with the novel’s central premise that Dracula was an abhorrent fiend that repelled Mina, far from any love interest. The scene where he makes her drink his blood (shamelessly ripped off in King’s Salem’s Lot… “Now, take MY communion”) was really a kind of rape that disgusted her.
The ’79 Langella version got it right with look and mood, but ‘effed up too much of the story trying to fit it into a format that was stage-friendly (interesting note: Frank Langella never wore fangs on stage, yet women that saw him swear they remember his fangs. He was really convincing in the role).
As for Stoker’s character, he supposedly modeled Dracula’s physical appearance on Henry Irving himself, who was tall, well built, and imposing-looking.
I find Coppola’s Dracula an absolute hoot, from Keanu Reeves doing something I think is meant to be called acting through to Anthony Hopkins just having the time of his life chewing up the scenery. Perhaps the main point in my admiration for it is that there’s no CGI: it’s all practical effects and camera tricks to make the horrible things happen on screen. And the costuming is just breathtaking.
Keanu “dude, look at me muttonchops” Reaves.
Oldman was pretty good as Drac
I have to disagree, respectfully. The modern vampire movies are always portrayed as something like misunderstood emo types who just want to be loved. Coppola’s backstory for the count is nowhere in the novel from what I remember. But Oldman plays him as a man who just wants to be a supernatural Harvey Fierstein via John Lovitz (I just want to be loved; is that so wrong?) Stoker’s count is evil through and through and wants to destroy — even threatening Mina at one point in the book when he’s cornered by the good guys.
“The costumes ARE the sets”, Coppola said at the time, with most of the “effects” budgets going to costuming. Agree on the old fashioned Hollywood tricks they used for special effects (Reeves looking at a body double in the mirror, etc). Lots of why the movie was done the way it was (on the cheap, inserting the romance angle so heavily, with bankable stars attracting 20 somethings, especially girls, etc) becomes clear once you learn that Coppola only made Dracula because he was near bankruptcy and needed to make a lot of quick cash, fast. Dracula was purely a commercial effort to put money in the bank to keep American Zoetrope from bankruptcy. He also made Godfather III for the same reason. Desperately needed the money.
One amusing bit of trivia: there’s actually a novelisation of “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”.
Yes, really. The author who did the novelisation jokingly said he wished he could have gotten the job for doing the novelisation of the recent adaptation of Frankenstein, because then the ad copy for the book could have read: “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – from the man who brought you Bram Stoker’s Dracula!”
Langella made major gina tingles.
Be sure to check out Bauhaus as well, if you haven’t already. They were experts in creating a gloomy atmosphere with their music – considered as the foundation of gothic rock:
EDIT: A decent Dracula movie should definitely have this soundtrack.
Peter Murphy fronted this band, right?
Watch “The Hunger”.. Bauhaus is in it!
Yup, together with Daniël Ash I believe
Ah, a bit before my time- I do like the “Cuts You Up” album he put out..
Never knew Stoker was Irish.
I saw it and thought it was awful. He turned Dracula into a love story.
He was from Dublin, the foreigner’s area of the island since the Vikings so who knows, especially since he seems to have come from the upper middle class or higher. You don’t get to be manager of the city’s best theater and meet world leaders by being born into the lower orders. It would be interesting to know if he were ethnically Irish.
He was Anglo-Irish, i.e. English of the Protestant landed gentry.
That’s what I figured. Many Anglo Irish eventually integrated into Ireland beyond the Pale, the zone in Dublin and surrounds where native Irish could only enter as an underclass.
Father was Protestant from North Dublin, city, and mother from Protestant family from Sligo. They tend to marry amongst themselves….. still do……
It’s not true that the native Irish could not live within the pale. 95% of the population within the pale have always been native Irish.
Also, the so-called middle and upper classes in Irish society were not exclusively Anglo-Irish Protestants or “West Brits” as they were known more affectionately.
Perhaps so, but the upper classes there have always been imported from elsewhere and everyone else had to live under their rules in that zone. And Bram Stoker wasn’t your ordinary guy, so I thought I’d inquire.
Fantastic book to read; and there was a miniseries that was done in the 1977 or so with Louis Jourdan in the title role. It’s pretty faithful to the book from what I remember, and it’s on youtube. But I have to say that I have Nosferatu on DVD and it’s a classic. TCM used to broadcast it every Halloween. It has a lot of mood to it as well, and Orlock is just so damn creepy looking; exudes death and disease.
Frankenstein was by far the better read. In Dracula it was hard not roll over laughing at the awkwardness of one of the main heroes being a Texan.
I read “Dracula” as a young man in my 20’s and it absolutely scared the hell out of me.
Haven’t read it in years…..I found the back story to Count Dracula more interesting…..
The BBC adaptation from 1977 starring Louis Jourdan is still the best. It was shown on both sides of the Atlantic over the Christmas holidays that year and caused quite a stir at the time. I highly recommend it and you can watch it for free on youtube.
I believe the ‘baby scene’ has not been cut from the version on youtube. It was cut from the version broadcast in the US back in 1977 though.
It does the production no harm that Judi Bowker, who plays Mina, was a genuinely beautiful woman.
The Gary Oldman, Keanu Reeves ( that’s right K.Reeves),Anthony Hopkins was a good version too…
It’s filmed beautifully and the make up and costumes are great. The Louis Jourdan version follows the book the best.
Yes, it is my favorite film version of the book. I have the DVD and I believe the baby scene is included. Louis Jourdan is a very good Dracula too. Yes, Mina is stunning too.
Feminists and SJWs like to screech that Dracula is the true hero of the story, offering sexual liberation to the poor oppressed Victorian wimmins who only wanted the power to cock-hop like all of the bad old cis-het patriarchal men. They fail to realize that Dracula not only represented corruption of the soul, but also Venereal Disease, filth, addiction and the miseries associated with unrestrained desire.
The true horror of Dracula lies not with his ability to kill, but his ability to seduce. He is the original Alpha Thug luring females away from civilization-building betas and into a shadowy, wasted existence.
The best version of Dracula has already been filmed in 1977 for the BBC. It is called “Count Dracula” and is 3 hours long and stars Louis Jourdan as Dracula. It follows the book word for word. If you love the book this is the one for you.