I really would love to give a detailed and acurate analysis of this book but I'm afraid this would take my entire lifetime! Dracula himself is terrifying yet beautiful at the same moment. Simple, primal and iconic and yet infinitely complex. Dracula is very hard to kill as Jonathan Harker discovers. A tight and chilling plot as smooth as an elavator door. A tale history will never forget.

i bought this online with my gift card and the buying experience was great. it arrived at my home promptly, and was in perfect condition. after reading the first few pages i wasn't that exited about it (for some reason this is how i feel about all vampire books) howerer, a chapter or two in and i was hooked. the book has a nice cover and i was pleased to find a tiny dictionary for complicated or "olden times" words. no complaints and price is a bonus

Actual Rating: 3.5 I want you to believe...to believe in things that you cannot.” Years ago, when in desperate need of a distraction and options were limited I purchased a copy of ‘Dracula’ which I only ever flicked through. Classics generally aren’t my thing (although I do eventually hope to give at least some of them a chance) and there’s always so many enchanting sounding reads around that I never get around to picking any of them up. Visiting Whitby, where some of ‘Dracula’ is set, pushed me to finally give this classic a chance though and truthfully I’m happy that I did. Admittedly less of the novel takes place in Whitby than I initially imagined but I’m still happy that visiting the town and abbey made me finally check this book out. In places my eyes did roll slightly at the overly wordy language used but on many more occasions I found myself engaged with the text. It’s a rich, atmospheric read which transports you to the past wonderfully. I just found it hard on occasion to understand what certain individuals were going on about when lapsing into philosophical style speeches. Some instances of this were due to historic or literature related references, others to regional dialects and others simply due to the flowery prose. These segments did make it hard to get through some passages on occasion but the rest of the novel generally left me riveted enough to happily persevere without complaint. Being a well known story I did know some of the events that would take place in the text and I can’t help but wonder how these moments catching me off guard would have changed my experience of the narrative. It has an interesting mix of characters and learning about some of them certainly gave me chills. Mina struck me as a fairly strong female character for the time that the novel was written. The scenes with Renfield disturbed me to no end. And watching the slow decline of Dracula’s victims was very atmospheric and well done. From flicking through the novel before I knew that it contained letters and journal entries but I was surprised to discover that the entire text was made up of these alone. Personally I loved this approach to the novel as it gave you an insight into the minds of various individuals at different points of time in the novel. Each voice was different and distinctive. Altogether reading ’Dracula’ was a pleasant surprise for me, not generally being a fan of classics. The prose did fall into the familiar patterns of old English texts at times but this was generally limited to segments of speech that, once endured, led back into more compelling parts of the narrative. It’s an atmospheric read with an interesting mix of characters. Surprisingly it’s a classic that I wouldn’t rule out re-reading at some point in the future (although admittedly not any time soon given how much else I desperately want to read also).

This was a novel I have been wanting to read for a very long time and I am glad that I have finally taken the time to do this. Since this is such a classic horror story I already had an idea of what was going to happen especially having seen adaptations and read things that have been inspired by it but I thoroughly enjoyed it. The story did feature some aspects that I did not expect at all and while I could have potentially been bored, but, I think I had correctly assessed my expectations and was content to just follow along with the story. All of the characters were well developed and I could tell them apart easily (full cast audio did help) as they seemed to follow set character themes and did not stray from these forms. I enjoyed the fact it was written in an epistolary format. Additionally, the plot while I already knew it allowed for the creation of a great atmosphere which was consistent throughout the book. Honestly, just a great classic horror novel that I would one day like to annotate and delve into the book with a critical view.

The true original, where it all started and a phenomenon that spawned a generation and more of copy cat stories and movies. Yes of course it is off its age, and the descriptive prose/language can take a short time and a little concentration to adjust to....but persevere and you will be rewarded with an exciting introduction to Nosferatu, the Un-Dead, and in particular the evil of Count Dracula. Not only did Bram Stoker write an exciting adventure full of horror but the characters were colourful/strong and the descriptive eerie atmosphere added a wonderful mood and sense of doom to a highly charged story..... "How sweet it was to see the clouds race by, and the passing gleams of the moonlight between the scudding clouds crossing and passing-like the gladness and sorrow of a man's life; how sweet it was to breathe the fresh air, that had no taint of death and decay." "Never did tombs look so ghastly white; never did cypress, or yew, or juniper so seem the embodiment of funereal gloom; never did tree or grass wave or rustle so ominously; never did bough creak so mysteriously; and never did the far-away howling of dogs send such a woeful presage through the night." "The mist grew thicker and I could see now how it came in, for I could see it like smoke-or with the white energy of boiling water-pouring in, not through the window, but through the joinings of the door." In particular the characters of Mina and Van Helsing proved a joy for the reader to encounter and behold. Jonathan Harker's beautiful and intelligent bride Mina with her delicate pale femininity and the almost swash buckling elder professor and Vampire Hunter Van Helsing who positively jumps out of the pages with his vitality and passion as he searches out and races against time to rid the world of the evil Dracula. The excitement and action traverse the UK and Europe culminating in a classic showdown at the Counts evil lair....Castle Dracula. So forget True Blood and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and just try to understand how it all started and what a great debt we owe to the creator of this pure evil!