Dracula is a Gothic horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker first published on May 26, 1897 in the United Kingdom. Between 1879 and 1898, Stoker was a business manager for a world-famous theatre in London where he supplemented his income by writing a large number of sensational novels, his most famous being the vampire tale. He spent 7 years researching European folklore and stories of vampires before writing Dracula, Emily Gerard's 1885 essay titled Transylvania Superstitions being the most influential.
Stoker would also claim later on that he had a nightmare caused by eating too much crab meat covered with mayonnaise sauce, about a vampire king rising from his grave. Famous for introducing the character of the Count, Dracula as a 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.
Stoker would also claim later on that he had a nightmare caused by eating too much crab meat covered with mayonnaise sauce, about a vampire king rising from his grave. Famous for introducing the character of the Count, Dracula as a 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.It also tells of the battle between him and a small group of humans led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing. The story is told in epistolary format as series of letters and entries whose narrators are the novel's protagonists occasionally supported with newspaper clippings relating events taking place chronologically between the 3rd of May and the 6th of November but not directly witnessed.
The book has been assigned to many literary genres including vampire literature, horror fiction, the gothic novel, and invasion literature. Authors such as Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, and H. G. Wells wrote many tales in which fantastic creatures threatened the British Empire throughout the 1880s and 1890s. Invasion literature was at a peak, and Stoker's formula of an attack on England by continental European influences was very familiar to readers of fantastic adventure stories.
Readers back then enjoyed it as a good adventure story like many others but it would not reach its iconic legendary status until later in the 20th century. Despite being the most widely known vampire novel (maybe beside Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series and Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles), Dracula was not the first. Although Stoker did not invent the vampire, he defined its modern form and the novel has spawned numerous theatrical, film, and television interpretations.
Readers back then enjoyed it as a good adventure story like many others but it would not reach its iconic legendary status until later in the 20th century. Despite being the most widely known vampire novel (maybe beside Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series and Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles), Dracula was not the first. Although Stoker did not invent the vampire, he defined its modern form and the novel has spawned numerous theatrical, film, and television interpretations.
