Dracula (Wordsworth Classics)

The book has aged rather well, I think. The style is unlike any modern book I've read and is written as a series of journals, diary entries, letters, memoranda and newspaper articles, so the reader sees the events from various angles. Great use is made of the modern technology and scientific theories of the time. Dr Seward keeps his diary using a phonograph, Mina and Jonathan Harker use shorthand, Mina transcribes all the diaries on her typewriter and "knits" them into a sensible order. Use is also made of the very peculiar and sometimes dangerous medicine and psychology of the period. Dr Van Helsing is a medical doctor. He performs blood transfusions (blood groups are not an issue it seems) and the blood is pumped straight from the arms of no fewer than 3 men into the body of one anaemic girl. Really, it would be surprising to us if she didn't die - what a stroke of luck if the blood groups all just happened to be compatible. This sort of thing really did happen in the early days of blood transfusions though. She was fortunate to get human blood - dogs, sheep, horses and all sorts were tried experimentally in earlier, real-life cases. Dr Seward is a psychologist and his analysis of his patient, Renfield is pretty strange. But man of medicine, Dr Van Helsing, also dabbles in psychology and his analysis of Dracula is even more peculiar. He concludes that Dracula has a child's brain and this whacky analysis helps them to work out what the old devil's up to and how they can best hunt him. Again, as nutty as this might seem to the modern reader, it worked well enough in a Gothic horror. In any case, readers of horror stories should already have suspended their disbelief in preparation to enjoy the story and I don't think this story will disappoint anyone who enjoys a good horror story.

The audiobook was good too. I thought the actors performed very well and, with the music, they managed to generate a very sinister atmosphere. My only criticism of the audio version is the editing and that's just a small criticism because it must have been difficult to edit this book down to slightly less than 4 hours. Some of the scenes that were missed made a few other scenes that were included, seem puzzling. I listened to the audiobook before reading the book and I found it a bit disjointed until reading the book filled in the gaps for me. Other than that, I think Naxos did a splendid job. I recommend both the book and the audiobook.


Chilling Listening...   November 10, 2003
Mr. C. Coker (Oxford, Oxon United Kingdom)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

The audiobook by Naxos is more like a radio play than a conventional reading of a book by one narrator, but this has been well done, and I found myself absorbed by it. I have been listening to this in my car as I commute and I could feel a slight sense of fear as it got dark and Count Dracula started to make his presence in London felt...
It has been slighty annotated, but not so much as to detract from the story, and I would highly recommend this.


Well justified in being crowned king of the vampire stories.   April 18, 2001
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

Dracula - ah, where to begin? This is simply essential reading for anyone interested in pre-20th century literature or vampires or gothic horror. In the past century, Dracula has been copied, exploited and abused until it became little more than cliche, but when you actually revisit the original story, presented here with helpful study notes from Dr David Rogers, you will find it riveting. It has been said that parts of this book are boring, but they are actually carefully placed to lull you. They build up the tension by merely hinting at the things we know will develop later, like someone casually noting a large bat fly past or the such like. I can especially recommend the opening chapters, which tell of Jonathan Harker's time in Castle Dracula. Sheer vampiric magic.


Easily the best horror novel ever written   November 28, 2002
Daniel Jolley (Shelby, North Carolina USA)
8 out of 10 found this review helpful

Bram Stoker's Dracula is, hands down, the greatest horror novel ever written. In addition, it is also an enduring classic of literature. You may have seen every Dracula movie ever made, but you do not know the real Count Dracula until such time as you have read Stoker's book. Of course, unless you have been living under a rock, you will know the general plot line, but I assure you there is a wealth of rich material buried throughout the text that is sure to excite, intrigue, and surprise you. Perhaps the ending is a slight anticlimactic, yet I, having read this novel before and being quite familiar with the Count, read the final pages with bated breath, an anxious mind, and the sense of exhilaration that only the most talented of writers can induce.

The most striking characteristic of Stoker's masterpiece is its solid grounding in late 19th-century Victorianism. This may prove frustrating to some readers. It is far from uncommon for the men in the tale to weep and bemoan the dangers threatening the virtuous ladies Lucy and Mina; virtue and innocence of women are hailed rather religiously. Mina, for her part, assumes the role then deemed proper for women, accepting and praising the men for their protection of her, worrying constantly about her husband rather than herself, shedding tears she must not let her husband see, etc. Yet, it is most interesting to see Mina rise above the circle of a woman's proscribed duties; she in fact becomes a true partner in the effort against Dracula, expressing ideas and conclusions that the men, with all of their wisdom, could not come up with themselves.

Another thing I find interesting is the lack of a clear protagonist in Dracula. Technically, I suppose, Jonathon Harker is the protagonist, but Mina, Dr. Van Helsing, Dr. Seward, and the Count himself basically operate on an equal plane with him. It is Van Helsing who can be described as the anti-Dracula; he plans the moves by which he and his friends seek to thwart the Count's plans and destroy him; the second half of the novel can be compared to a chess match between two equally strong competitors. Minor characters such as the lunatic Renfield are also drawn clearly in our mind's eye by Stoker's incredible gift of characterization. While the format is unusual--the novel consisting fully of diary and journal entries by different characters--you cannot help but be drawn in closely to the group of heroic souls who pledge their very lives to one another as they take it upon themselves to combat a centuries-old evil.

One could expound upon a number of themes in this novel (and many literary critics have certainly done so), so I will just quickly mention a few. Is this an erotic story? Certainly, to some extent, but there is certainly nothing overtly sexual in these pages. Is it really horrible? One might wonder how much blood one would encounter in this product of the Victorian age, but there are indeed some rather shockingly gruesome descriptions of events--nothing to shock modern readers but probably quite surprising to Stoker's contemporaries. There are also subtle overtones of religion in these pages. Aside from the Christian objects that have the power to keep vampires at bay, the most striking scene in the novel is Dracula's perversion of the Lord's Supper in his own most nefarious deed.

I cannot recommend Stoker's masterpiece highly enough. The impatient reader may encounter sections that move too slowly than he/she would like, but such lulls are always wiped away by sudden spurts of activity and drama. Feminists will dislike the Victorian characterization of the women but can find unexpected pleasure in the strength and intellect of Mina. Literary critics will surely find in these pages a deep ocean of issues ripe for analysis. Of most importance, the common reader will find an absorbing storyline which may horrify him/her to some degree in places but which will certainly offer great rewards of enjoyment. I think most individuals would be won over completely by the great humanity of these characters and the unexpected richness and complexity to be found in this story of a fiend they thought they already knew.