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=                              Dracula                               =
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                            Introduction
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'Dracula' is an 1897 Gothic horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker.
The narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper
articles. It has no single protagonist and opens with solicitor
Jonathan Harker taking a business trip to stay at the castle of a
Transylvanian nobleman, Count Dracula. Harker flees after learning
that Dracula is a vampire, and the Count moves to England and plagues
the seaside town of Whitby. A small group, led by Abraham Van Helsing,
hunts and kills him.

The novel was mostly written in the 1890s, and Stoker produced over a
hundred pages of notes, drawing extensively from folklore and history.
Scholars have suggested various figures as the inspiration for
Dracula, including the Wallachian prince Vlad the Impaler and the
Countess Elizabeth Báthory, but recent scholarship suggests otherwise.
He probably found the name Dracula in Whitby's public library while on
holiday, selecting it because he thought it meant 'devil' in Romanian.

Following the novel's publication in May 1897, some reviewers praised
its terrifying atmosphere while others thought Stoker included too
much horror. Many noted a structural similarity with Wilkie Collins'
'The Woman in White' (1859) and a resemblance to the work of Gothic
novelist Ann Radcliffe. In the 20th century, 'Dracula' became regarded
by critics as a seminal work of Gothic fiction. Scholars explore the
novel within the historical context of the Victorian era and regularly
discuss its portrayal of race, religion, gender and sexuality.

'Dracula' is one of the most famous works of English literature and
has been called the centrepiece of vampire fiction. In the mid-20th
century, publishers and film-makers realised Stoker incorrectly filed
the novel's copyright in the United States, making its story and
characters public domain there. Consequently, the novel has been
adapted many times. Count Dracula has deeply influenced the popular
conception of vampires; with over 700 appearances across virtually all
forms of media, the 'Guinness Book of World Records' named Dracula the
most portrayed literary character.


                                Plot
======================================================================
Jonathan Harker, a newly qualified English solicitor, visits Count
Dracula at his castle in the Carpathian Mountains to help the Count
purchase a house near London. Ignoring the Count's warning, Harker
wanders the castle at night and encounters three vampire women;
Dracula rescues Harker, and gives the women a small child bound inside
a bag. Six weeks later, Dracula leaves the castle, abandoning Harker
to the women. Harker escapes and ends up delirious in a Budapest
hospital. Dracula takes a ship called the 'Demeter' for England with
boxes of earth from his castle. The captain's log narrates the crew's
disappearance until he alone remains, bound to the helm to maintain
course. An animal resembling a large dog is seen leaping ashore when
the ship runs aground at Whitby.

Lucy Westenra's letter to her best friend, Harker's fiancée Mina
Murray, describes her marriage proposals from Dr John Seward, Quincey
Morris, and Arthur Holmwood. Lucy accepts Holmwood's, but all remain
friends. Mina joins Lucy on holiday in Whitby. Lucy begins to
sleepwalk. After Dracula's ship lands in Whitby, he begins to stalk
Lucy. Mina receives a letter about her missing fiancé's illness and
goes to Budapest to nurse him. Lucy becomes very ill; Seward's old
teacher--Professor Abraham Van Helsing--determines the nature of her
condition, but he refuses to disclose it, instead diagnosing it as
acute blood-loss. Van Helsing places garlic flowers around her room
and makes her a necklace of them. Lucy's mother removes the garlic
flowers, not knowing they repel vampires. While Seward and Van Helsing
are absent, Lucy and her mother are terrified by a wolf and her mother
dies of a heart attack; Lucy dies shortly thereafter. After her
burial, newspapers report children being stalked in the night by a
"bloofer lady" (beautiful lady), and Van Helsing deduces it is Lucy.
Seward, Morris, Holmwood, and Van Helsing go to her tomb and see that
she is a vampire. They stake her heart, behead her, and fill her mouth
with garlic. Jonathan Harker and his new bride Mina return and join
the campaign against Dracula.

Everyone stays at Seward's asylum as the men begin to hunt Dracula.
Van Helsing finally reveals that vampires can only rest on earth from
their homeland. Dracula communicates with Seward's patient, Renfield,
an insane man who eats vermin to absorb their life force. After
Dracula learns of the group's plot against him, he uses Renfield to
enter the asylum. He secretly attacks Mina three times, drinking her
blood each time and forcing Mina to drink his blood on the final
visit, cursing her to become a vampire after her death unless Dracula
is killed. The men discover that Dracula has distributed his boxes of
earth around various properties in London. After sterilizing most of
the distributed boxes, the group fails to trap the Count in his
Piccadilly house and learns that Dracula is fleeing to his castle in
Transylvania with his last box. Using hypnosis, Van Helsing exploits
Mina's faint psychic connection to Dracula to track his movements and
they pursue, guided by Mina.

In Galatz, Romania, the hunters split up. Van Helsing and Mina go to
Dracula's castle, where the professor destroys the vampire women.
Harker and Holmwood pursue Dracula's boat on the river, while Morris
and Seward follow them on land. Dracula's box is loaded onto a wagon
by Romani men; the hunters attack and rout the Romani. Harker
decapitates Dracula as Morris stabs him in the heart. Dracula crumbles
to dust, freeing Mina from her vampiric curse. Morris is mortally
wounded in the fight against the Romani. He dies, at peace knowing
that Mina is saved. A note by Jonathan Harker seven years later states
that the Harkers have a son, named Quincey after their friend.


Author
========
Bram Stoker was born in Clontarf, Dublin on 8 November 1842 as the
third of seven children. A sickly child, he was homeschooled before
attending a private day school. Stoker attended Trinity College Dublin
in the 1860s and began writing theatre reviews in the early 1870s.
After Stoker wrote a review of a performance by stage actor Henry
Irving, the two became friends. In 1878, Irving offered Stoker a job
as the business manager of London's Lyceum Theatre, which he accepted.
He married Florence Balcombe later that year. Biographer Lisa Hopkins
notes that this role required Stoker to be sociable and introduced him
to the elites of Victorian London. Nonetheless, Stoker described
himself as a private person who closely guarded his thoughts.

Stoker supplemented his theatre income by writing romance and
sensation novels, but was more closely identified during his lifetime
with the theatre than he was with the literary world. By the time of
his death in 1912, he had published 18 books. 'Dracula' was his
seventh published book, following 'The Shoulder of Shasta' (1895) and
preceding 'Miss Betty' (1898). Stoker's great-nephew, Daniel Farson,
wrote that Stoker may have died from syphilis, but this is widely
disputed by scholars. Novelist and playwright Hall Caine, a close
friend of Stoker's, wrote in Stoker's obituary in 'The Daily
Telegraph' that--besides his biography on Irving--Stoker wrote only
"to sell" and "had no higher aims".


Inspiration
=============
Folkloric vampires predate Stoker's Dracula by hundreds of years.
Stoker adopted some characteristics of folkloric vampires for his own,
such as their aversion to garlic and staking as a means of killing
them. He invented other attributes--for example, Stoker's vampires
must be invited into one's home, sleep on earth from their homeland
and have no reflection in mirrors. Sunlight is not fatal to Dracula in
the novel--this was an invention of the unauthorised 'Dracula' film
'Nosferatu' (1922)--but it does weaken him. Some of Stoker's
inventions applied unrelated lore to vampires for the first time; for
example, Dracula has no reflection because of a folkloric concept that
mirrors show the human soul. Some Irish scholars have suggested Irish
folklore as an inspiration for the novel, for example the revenant
Abhartach, and the 11th-century High King of Ireland Brian Boru.
'Dracula' scholar Elizabeth Miller notes that in his childhood Stoker
was exposed to supernatural tales and Irish oral history involving
premature burials and staked bodies.

Count Dracula has literary progenitors. John William Polidori's "The
Vampyre" (1819) includes an aristocratic vampire with powers of
seduction. The lesbian vampire of Sheridan Le Fanu's 'Carmilla' (1872)
can transform into a cat, as Dracula can transform into a dog. Dracula
resembles earlier Gothic villains in appearance, with Miller comparing
him to the villains of Ann Radcliffe's 'The Italian' (1796) and
Matthew Gregory Lewis's 'The Monk' (1796).

There is almost unanimous consensus that Dracula was inspired, in
part, by Henry Irving. Scholars note the Count's tall and lean
physique and aquiline nose, with 'Dracula' scholar William Hughes
specifically citing the influence of Irving's performance as Shylock
in a Lyceum Theatre production of 'The Merchant of Venice'. Stoker's
contemporaries remarked upon the similarity. Stoker had praised a
performance of Irving as "a wonderful impression of a dead man
fictitiously alive [with eyes like] cinders of glowing red from out
the marble face". Louis S. Warren writes that 'Dracula' was founded on
"the fear and animosity his employer inspired in him". Miller contests
this, describing Stoker's attitude towards him as "adulation".

Historical figures have been suggested as inspirations for Count
Dracula but there is no consensus. In a 1972 book, Raymond T. McNally
and Radu Florescu popularised the idea that Ármin Vámbéry supplied
Stoker with information about Vlad Dracula, commonly known as Vlad the
Impaler. Their investigation, however, found nothing about "Vlad,
Dracula, or vampires" within Vámbéry's published papers, nor in
Stoker's notes about their meeting.  Miller calls the link to Vlad III
"tenuous", indicating that Stoker incorporated a large amount of
"insignificant detail" from his research, and rhetorically asking why
he would omit Vlad III's infamous cruelty. McNally additionally
suggested in 1983 that the crimes of Elizabeth Báthory inspired
Stoker. A book used by Stoker for research, 'The Book of Were-Wolves'
by Sabine Baring-Gould, does contain some information on Báthory, but
Stoker never took notes from the short section devoted to her. Miller
and her co-author Robert Eighteen-Bisang concur that there is no
evidence Báthory inspired Stoker.


Composition
=============
Prior to writing the novel, Stoker researched extensively, assembling
over 100 pages of notes, including chapter summaries and plot
outlines. Stoker undertook some of his research at a library at Whitby
in the summer of 1890 but most was done at the London Library. The
earliest dated notes are from 8 March 1890, comprising an outline of
the novel's opening. Joseph S. Beirman notes that it differs from the
final novel "in only a few details": The Count and Harker are not
given names. The word 'vampire' is not used explicitly, but it depicts
the Count's possessive fury over Harker and a female who attempts "to
kiss him not on lips but throat". In February 1892, Stoker wrote a
27-chapter outline of the novel; according to Miller, "all the key
pieces of the jigsaw were in place".

Stoker's notes reveal other scrapped concepts. Joseph S. Bierman says
that Stoker always intended to write an epistolary novel but
originally set it in Styria instead of Transylvania. Other concepts
from the notes include a German professor called Max Windshoeffel
confronting a "Count Wampyr" and one of the vampire hunters would have
been slain by a werewolf. Stoker biographer Barbara Belford notes
evidence that Stoker intended to write a detective story, with a
detective called Cotford and a psychical investigator called
Singleton.

Stoker took the name Dracula from William Wilkinson's history of
Wallachia and Moldavia (1820), which he probably found in Whitby's
public library while holidaying there in 1890. Stoker copied the
following footnote from the book: "Dracula means devil. Wallachians
were accustomed to give it as a surname to any person who rendered
himself conspicuous by courage, cruel actions or cunning".

Stoker stated that it took him about three years to write the novel,
and it is likely that he wrote most of the manuscript during his
summer holidays in Cruden Bay, Scotland from 1893 to 1896. Stoker
generally wrote in spare time from his duties as Irving's business
manager, and the long gestation of the novel is indicative of the
importance he placed on it.


Publication
=============
Early Stoker biographer Barbara Belford noted the novel looked
"shabby" because of a last-minute title change; the printer's copy of
the typescript, with hand-written amendments, is titled 'The Un-Dead'.
The surviving typewritten publishing agreement was signed and dated 25
May 1897; Peter Beal of Sotheby's suggests its signing one day before
the official publication date indicates that it was a formality. To
protect his copyright interest for adaptations, Stoker organised a
reading of his stage adaptation of the novel in the week before
publication in the Lyceum Theatre. A small group, primarily theatre
staff, attended the reading, and Edith Craig played Mina.

Bound in yellow cloth and titled in red letters, 'Dracula' was
published in May 1897 by Archibald Constable and Company. It cost 6
shillings. Uncertainty exists around the exact date of publication,
but it was probably published on 26 May 1897. Stoker wrote to William
Gladstone that the novel would be released on the 26th. Paul McAlduff
writes that it was published "on or about May 26". Eighteen-Bisang
states it could have been published anywhere from late May to June
1897.

Stoker's mother, Charlotte Stoker, enthused about the novel and
predicted it would bring her son immense financial success. She was
wrong: the novel, although reviewed well, failed to earn Stoker much
money and did not establish his critical reputation until after his
death. For the first thousand sales of 'Dracula', Stoker earned no
royalties. Following serialisation by American newspapers, Doubleday
& McClure published an American edition in 1899 with some textual
changes. A cheaper paperback version was published by Constable in
1901, but few copies have survived. The text is around 15% shorter
than the original but it is not known if Stoker made the amendments.
Since its publication, 'Dracula' has never been out of print.

An edition of the novel edited by McNally and Florescu in 1979 was the
first to include 'Dracula''s "missing chapter", "Dracula's Guest".
Bram's widow Florence Stoker included the chapter as a short story in
'Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Tales' (1914), two years after his
death. While some commentators have described the prose as 'Dracula'
discarded first chapter, Clive Leatherdale contests this, arguing that
the material was incorporated into the published novel.


Epistolary structure
======================
'Dracula' is an epistolary novel. Compared to other elements of the
novel, critic David Seed writes that its epistolary structure has been
neglected in analyses. Critics note Stoker's decision to structure the
novel this way may relate to a 19th-century trend of publishing
diaries and travelogue accounts, especially with Harker's account of
the journey to Transylvania. Seed writes that Harker's initial four
chapters function as a "miniaturised-pastiche-Gothic novel"--replacing
Radcliffe's use of the Apennine Mountains in 'The Mysteries of
Udolpho' (1794) with the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania--and
places this within the Gothic tradition of intertextuality.

David Seed argues that the structure only provides a narrative voice
to Dracula's opponents, while Miller writes that the "collaborative
narration" reinforces the idea that Dracula must be defeated by a
combined effort. Allison Case says Seed views that Dracula's absence
generates tension by offering only "tantalizing glimpses" of his
activities, while literary critic Franco Moretti writes that it
highlights the power struggle between the vampire and his hunters.
Similarly, Allison Case views the structure as representing a power
struggle between Mina and the male protagonists for "narrative
mastery". Seed notes that the narrative's style distances the reader
from its plot. Dracula's journey on the 'Demeter' is captured by the
captain on the logbook, then "translated by the Russian consul,
transcribed by a local journalist, and finally pasted by Mina into her
journal".


Gothic genre
==============
'Dracula' is an enduring work of Gothic literature, with some critics
locating it within the traditions of Irish Gothic or Urban Gothic.
John C. Tibbetts considers 'Dracula' a prototype for later themes in
the Gothic genre. The novel is characteristically Gothic in its
depiction of the supernatural, preoccupation with the past, and
embodying of the racial, gendered and sexual anxieties of fin de
siècle England. Count Dracula generally represents these tensions:
cultural critic Jack Halberstam notes that he is masculinised and
feminised; Jerrold E. Hogle highlights his attraction to both Jonathan
and Mina, and his appearance as racially western and eastern. Miller
notes that the Count's physical characteristics were typical of Gothic
villains during Stoker's lifetime, specifically citing his hooked
nose, pallor, large moustache and thick eyebrows as influenced by his
villainous predecessors. 'Dracula' deviates from other Gothic tales
before it by firmly establishing its time as the modern era, a point
raised by one contemporary reviewer. Writers of the mode were drawn to
the Eastern Europe setting because travelogues presented it as a land
of primitive superstitions.


                             Reception
======================================================================
Modern critics frequently write that 'Dracula' had a mixed critical
reception upon publication. Carol Margaret Davison, for example, notes
an "uneven" response from critics contemporary to Stoker. John Edgar
Browning, a scholar whose research focuses on 'Dracula' and literary
vampires, conducted a review of the novel's early criticism in 2012
and determined that 'Dracula' had been "a critically acclaimed novel".
Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu's 'In Search of Dracula' (1972)
mentions the novel's "immediate success". Other works about 'Dracula'
also published in 1972 concur; Gabriel Ronay says the novel was
"recognised by fans and critics alike as a horror writer's stroke of
genius", and Anthony Masters mentions the novel's "enormous popular
appeal". Since the 1970s, 'Dracula' has been the subject of
significant academic interest; the novel has spawned many nonfiction
books and articles, and has a dedicated peer-reviewed journal.
Publishers started creating editions aimed at classroom teaching in
the 1980s, providing the novel alongside historical context and
scholarly analysis. The novel's complexity has permitted a flexibility
of interpretation, with Anca Andriescu Garcia describing interest from
scholars of psychoanalysis, postcolonialism, social class and the
Gothic genre.


Contemporary reviewers frequently compared the novel to other Gothic
writers. Comparisons to novelist Wilkie Collins and 'The Woman in
White' (1859) were especially common, owing to similarities in
structure and style. A review appearing in 'The Bookseller' notes that
the novel could almost have been written by Collins, and an anonymous
review in 'Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art'
wrote that 'Dracula' improved upon the style of Gothic pioneer Ann
Radcliffe; Radcliffe was also referenced by 'The Daily Mail,' which
also highlighted 'The Mysteries of Udolpho', 'Frankenstein' (1818),
and 'The Fall of the House of Usher' (1839). Another anonymous writer
described Stoker as "the Edgar Allan Poe of the nineties". Other
favourable comparisons to other Gothic novelists included the Brontë
sisters and Mary Shelley. Arthur Conan Doyle sent a letter to Stoker
after reading 'Dracula', writing: "The old Professor is most excellent
and so are the two girls. I congratulate you with all my heart for
having written so fine a book."

Many of these early reviews were charmed by Stoker's treatment of the
vampire myth. 'The Daily Telegraph' called it the best vampire story
ever written. 'The Daily Telegraph' reviewer noted that while earlier
Gothic works, like 'The Castle of Otranto', had kept the supernatural
far away from the novelists' home countries, 'Dracula' horrors
occurred in foreign lands and at home in Whitby and Hampstead Heath.
An Australian paper, 'The Advertiser', regarded the novel as
simultaneously sensational and domestic. One reviewer praised the
"considerable power" of Stoker's prose and described it as
impressionistic. They were less fond of the parts set in England,
finding the vampire suited better to tales set far away from home. The
British magazine 'Vanity Fair' found Dracula's disdain for garlic
unintentionally funny.

'Dracula' was considered frightening. A review appearing in 'The
Manchester Guardian' in 1897 praised its capacity to entertain, but
concluded that Stoker erred in including so much horror. Likewise,
'Vanity Fair' opined that the novel was "praiseworthy" and absorbing,
but could not recommend it to those who were not "strong". Stoker's
prose was commended as effective in sustaining the novel's horror by
many publications. A reviewer for the 'San Francisco Wave' called the
novel a "literary failure"; they elaborated that coupling vampires
with frightening imagery, such as insane asylums and "unnatural
appetites", made the horror too overt, and that other works in the
genre, such as 'Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' (1886), had
more restraint.


Sexuality and gender
======================
Sexuality and seduction are two of the novel's most frequently
discussed themes, and modern critical writings about vampirism widely
acknowledge its link to sex and sexuality. Across the novel's critical
history, Miller writes that theorists have collectively argued that
the Count breaks virtually "every Victorian taboo", including
"non-procreative sexuality, abnormal sexuality, fellatio, bisexuality,
incest and the abuse of children".

Transgressive or abnormal sexuality within 'Dracula' is a broad topic.
Some psychosexual critics explore the novel's disruption of Victorian
gender roles; within the Victorian context, Christopher Craft writes
males had "the right and responsibility of vigorous appetite" while
women were required to "suffer and be still". Critics highlight the
many places in which the novel disrupts these social mores: Jonathan
Harker's excitement over the prospect of being penetrated; Dracula's
resulting anger and jealousy; and Lucy's transformation into a
sexually aggressive predator who drains "vital fluid". Some critics,
including professor Carol Senf, argue that the novel reflects anxiety
about female sexual awakening as a threat to established norms.

'Dracula' contains no overt homosexual acts, but homosexuality and
homoeroticism are elements discussed by critics. Christopher Craft
argues that the primary threat Dracula poses is that he will "seduce,
penetrate, [and] drain another male", and reads Harker's excitement to
submit as a proxy for "an implicitly homoerotic desire". Victorian
readers would have identified Dracula with sexual threat. Some critics
note that changes made to the 1899 American version of the text
reinforce this subtext, wherein Dracula states he will feed on Harker.
Critics have variously linked these themes to homoerotic letters
Stoker wrote to Walt Whitman, his friendship with Oscar Wilde, his
intensely emotional relationship with Irving, and contemporary rumours
of Stoker's almost sexless marriage. David J. Skal acknowledged the
letters' subtext but cautioned against applying anachronistic modern
sexual labels to Stoker.

Many critics have suggested that the novel reveals a "reactionary
response" to the New Woman phenomenon. This is a late-Victorian term
used to describe an emerging class of women with increased social and
economic control over their lives. Several critics describe the battle
against Dracula as a fight for control over women's bodies. Senf
suggests that Stoker was ambivalent about the New Woman phenomenon,
while Signorroti argues that the novel's discomfort with female sexual
autonomy reflects Stoker's dislike for the movement. Both Lucy and
Mina have characteristics associated with the New Woman; Mina, who
plays an important role in Dracula's defeat, repeatedly expresses
contempt for the concept. Senf notes that Lucy is punished for
expressing dissatisfaction with her social position as a woman. After
her transformation into a vampire, her defeat by the vampire hunters
symbolises the re-establishment of "male supremacy".


Race
======
'Dracula', and specifically the Count's migration to Victorian
England, is frequently read as emblematic of invasion literature, and
a projection of fears about racial pollution. In an influential
postcolonialist analysis, Stephen Arata describes the novel's cultural
context of mounting anxiety in Britain over the decline of the British
Empire, the rise of other world powers, and a "growing domestic
unease" over the morality of imperial colonisation. Arata regards the
novel as representing "reverse colonisation": fear of other races
invading England and weakening its racial purity. Patricia McKee
writes that Dracula represents a negation of white culture while Mina
represents "pure whiteness". Dracula can be said to both kill white
bodies and turn them into the racial Other in death. Some critics
connect the racialisation of Dracula to his depiction as a degenerate
criminal.

Critics frequently identify antisemitic themes and imagery in the
novel. Between 1891 and 1900, the number of Jews living in England
increased sixfold, mainly due to antisemitic legislation and pogroms
in eastern Europe. Examples cited by Halberstam of antisemitic
connections include Dracula's appearance, wealth, parasitic bloodlust,
and "lack of allegiance" to one country. Dracula's appearance
resembles some other cultural depictions of Jews, such as Fagin in
Charles Dickens's 'Oliver Twist' (1838), and Svengali of George du
Maurier's 'Trilby' (1895). Jewish people were frequently described as
parasites in Victorian literature; Halberstam highlights fears that
Jews would spread diseases of the blood, and one journalist's
description of Jews as "Yiddish bloodsuckers". Daniel Renshaw writes
that any antisemitism in the text is "semi-subliminal"; he writes that
Dracula is not Jewish but does reflect the 19th-century conception of
Jewish people. Renshaw frames the novel more broadly as a general
suspicion of all foreigners.

The novel's depiction of Slovaks and Romani people has attracted
limited scholarly attention. In the novel, Harker describes the
Slovaks as "barbarians" and their boats as "primitive", reflecting his
imperialistic condescension towards other cultures. Peter Arnds writes
that the Count's control over the Romani and his abduction of young
children evoke folk superstitions about Romani people stealing
children, and that his ability to transform into a wolf is related to
xenophobic beliefs about the Romani as animalistic. Croley argues that
Dracula's association with the Romani made him suspect in the eyes of
Victorian England, where they were stigmatised owing to beliefs that
they ate "unclean meat" and lived among animals.


Religion, superstition and science
====================================
'Dracula' is saturated with religious imagery, but this has
traditionally been explored with less frequency by critics.
Christopher Herbert regards the novel as a parable about conflict with
an enemy who opposes Christ and Christianity, and argues that Van
Helsing is characterised as more of a priest than a scientist, "and
the novel's main religious authority". Scholars discuss the novel's
depiction of religion in relation to late Victorian anxieties about
the threat which secularism, scientific rationalism and the occult
posed to Christian beliefs and morality. Stoker himself had a lifelong
interest in supernatural inquiry, and Herbert writes that he mixes the
supernatural and superstitious beliefs with religious elements,
resulting in metaphors about moral uncleanness becoming literal
elements of the text's "occult reality". Herbert notes that the blood
of Christ is important to Christian ritual and imagery, and Richard
Noll notes that actual consumption of human blood is one of the oldest
Judeo-Christian taboos.

The vampire hunters use many weapons--including Christian practices
and symbols (prayer, crucifixes and consecrated hosts), folkloric
practices (garlic, staking and decapitation) and contemporary
technology (typewriters, phonographs, telegrams, blood transfusions
and Winchester rifles)--in their battle against Dracula. Sanders
argues that Stoker presents Christianity as a religion that can be
instrumentalised and incorporated into scientific knowledge. Herbert
describes Van Helsing's "Christian purification" of Lucy as punitively
addressing her promiscuity, and the resulting framing of Christianity
as a means towards the "eradication of deviancy".


Political and economic
========================
Critics discuss the novel in relation to British rule in Ireland and
Irish nationalism. Considerable debate exists over whether 'Dracula'
is an Irish novel; while it is largely set in England, Stoker was born
in British-ruled Ireland and lived there for the first 30 years of his
life. Though born into a Protestant family, he was distanced from the
religion's more conservative factions.

Raphaël Ingelbien notes that "recognizably nationalist" critics like
Terry Eagleton and Seamus Deane favoured readings of Dracula as "a
bloodthirsty caricature of the aristocratic landlord" where the
vampire represents the death of feudalism. Bruce Stewart changes the
focus to the lower classes, suggesting Dracula and his Romani
followers more likely represented violence by Irish National Land
League activists. Michael Valdez Moses compares Dracula to the
disgraced Charles Stewart Parnell, leader of the Irish Home Rule
movement from 1880 to 1882. Robert Smart argues that Stoker's
experience during the Great Famine (1845-1852) influenced the novel,
with Stewart also noting this as historical context.

Some critics discuss Count Dracula's noble title. Literary critic
Franco Moretti writes that he is an aristocrat "only in a manner of
speaking", citing his lack of servants, simple clothing, and lack of
aristocratic hobbies. Moretti suggests that Dracula's blood thirst
represents capital's desire to accumulate more capital. More
generally, Moretti argues the novel evinces cultural anxiety about
foreign capitalist monopolies functioning as a return of feudalism.
Chris Baldick maintains this line of analysis, describing Dracula as
an undead symbol of feudalism but concluding that the novel is more
concerned with "sexual and religious terrors". Mark Neocleous writes
that Dracula symbolises the victory of the bourgeoisie over feudalism.
In 'Das Kapital', Karl Marx compared the bourgeoisie's exploitation of
workers to a vampire draining blood. He uses vampires as a metaphor
three times in 'Das Kapital', but these predate the writing of
'Dracula.'


Disease
=========
Contagious disease was a topic of social and medical concern in late
Victorian England. Vampirism can represent disease, being both an
initial infection and the resulting illness. The novel characterises
vampirism with terms from social degeneration theory, an 18th- and
19th-century social and biological concept arising from fear over the
deterioration of the "human condition"; Victorian psychiatry, known
then as "alienism"; and anthropology. Theories of degeneracy
propagated Victorian-era beliefs about poor moral character being
transmissible like a pathogen. Halberstam writes that Dracula and
Renfield's relationship suggests that vampirism is "a psychological
disorder, an addictive activity". He notes that Renfield, and by
association Dracula, is described by doctors using terminology more
appropriate for describing animals. Brian Aldiss writes that Count
Dracula represents the initial disease while Renfield's madness is a
symptom of advanced infection. Halbertstam highlights that disease was
frequently associated with Jews during the period. Sexually
transmitted infection, particularly syphilis, is a frequent topic.
Literary critic Martin Willis writes that the novel depicts Victorian
discourse over the origin, cause and treatment of disease, especially
in the context of Lucy's treatment and eventual death.


Adaptations
=============
'Dracula' has been adapted many times across virtually all forms of
media. Scholars John Edgar Browning and Caroline Joan S. Picart note
that the novel and its characters have been adapted for film,
television, video games and animation over 700 times, with nearly 1000
additional appearances in comic books and on the stage; in 2015, the
'Guinness Book of World Records' named Dracula the most portrayed
literary character, noting he had appeared almost twice as much as
Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. Literary critic Roberto Fernández
Retamar deemed Count Dracula--alongside Frankenstein's monster, Mickey
Mouse and Superman--to be a part of the "hegemonic Anglo-Saxon
world['s] cinematic fodder". Across the world, new adaptations can be
produced as often as every week.

Adaptations were produced during Stoker's lifetime. Stoker's first
theatrical adaptation ('Dracula, or The Undead'); was read once at the
Lyceum Theatre. While the manuscript was believed lost, the British
Library have extracts of the novel's galley proof with Stoker's
handwritten stage directions and dialogue attribution. A Swedish
newspaper serialised an adaptation from June 1899 to February 1900 as
'Mörkrets Makter' ("Powers of Darkness"). This version is almost twice
as long as Stoker's novel, containing elements included in Stoker's
notes but not in the published novel. The adaptation contains an
author's preface signed "B. S", which Eighteen-Bisang and Miller
conclude was not written by Stoker. Although believed lost, the
Swedish adaptation was rediscovered and published in 2017. In 1901,
Valdimar Ásmundsson translated a heavily abridged version of the
Swedish adaptation into Icelandic under the title 'Makt Myrkranna'
("Powers of Darkness"). The adaptation included an abridged author's
preface, purportedly by Stoker. Scholars knew the Icelandic version
had existed since the 1980s because of the preface attributed to
Stoker. When the Swedish translation was rediscovered, scholars
learned that the Icelandic version had been translated from it rather
than Stoker's 'Dracula'.

The first film to feature Count Dracula was a Hungarian silent
film--Károly Lajthay's 'Drakula halála' (). The film allegedly
premiered in 1921 but this release date has been questioned by some
scholars. Very little of the film survives, and David J. Skal notes
that the cover artist for the 1926 Hungarian edition of the novel was
more influenced by the second adaptation of 'Dracula', F. W. Murnau's
'Nosferatu' (1922). Critic Wayne E. Hensley writes that the narrative
of 'Nosferatu' differs significantly from the novel, but that
characters have clear counterparts. Bram Stoker's widow, Florence,
initiated legal action against Prana, the studio behind 'Nosferatu'.
The legal case lasted two or three years, with Prana agreeing to
destroy all copies in May 1924.

Visual representations of the Count have changed significantly over
time. Early treatments of Dracula's appearance were established by
theatrical productions in London and New York. Later prominent
portrayals of the character by Béla Lugosi (in a 1931 adaptation) and
Christopher Lee (firstly in the 1958 film and later its sequels) built
upon earlier versions. Chiefly, Dracula's early visual style involved
a black-red colour scheme and slicked back hair. Lee's portrayal was
overtly sexual, and also popularised fangs on screen. Gary Oldman's
portrayal in 'Bram Stoker's Dracula' (1992), directed by Francis Ford
Coppola and costumed by Eiko Ishioka, established a new default look
for the character--a Romanian accent and long hair. The assortment of
adaptations feature many different dispositions and characteristics of
the Count.


Influence
===========
'Dracula' is one of the most famous and influential works of English
literature. Although not the first novel to depict vampires, the work
dominates both popular and scholarly treatments of vampire fiction.
For many people, Count Dracula is the first character to come to mind
when discussing vampires. 'Dracula' succeeded by drawing together
folklore, legend, vampire fiction and the conventions of the Gothic
novel. Humanities scholar Wendy Doniger described the novel as vampire
literature's "centrepiece, rendering all other vampires BS [Before
Stoker] or AS [After Stoker]". William Hughes argues that the Count's
cultural omnipresence negatively impacted academic analyses of the
undead; Dracula is "the reference point" to which all other vampires
are compared.

It profoundly shaped the popular understanding of how vampires
function, including their strengths, weaknesses, and other
characteristics. Bats had been associated with vampires before
'Dracula' as a result of the vampire bat's existence--for example,
'Varney the Vampire' (1847) included an image of a bat on its cover
illustration--but Stoker deepened the association by making Dracula
able to transform into one. That was, in turn, quickly taken up by
film studios looking for opportunities to use special effects.
Novelist Patrick McGrath notes that many of the Count's
characteristics have been adopted by artists succeeding Stoker in
depicting vampires, turning those fixtures into clichés. Aside from
the Count's ability to transform, McGrath specifically highlights his
hatred of garlic and crucifixes. William Hughes writes critically of
the Count's cultural omnipresence, noting that the character of
Dracula has "seriously inhibited" discussions of the undead in Gothic
fiction.

In the 1930s, Universal Studios initiated development on a 'Dracula'
film and learned Stoker failed to comply with United States copyright
law. This prematurely placed the novel into the public domain in the
United States. It was not until the 1960s that publishers recognised
the novel's copyright status. Coinciding with the mass-market
paperback's rising popularity, publishers began to produce their own
versions. Stoker's mistake prevented his descendants from collecting
royalties but provided ideal conditions for the novel to endure
because writers and producers did not need to pay a licence fee to use
the character of Count Dracula.


Studies on ''Dracula''{{'s}} notes
====================================
The following is a list of books or articles that study all or part of
Bram Stoker's notes for 'Dracula'.
*
*
*
*
*
*


                           External links
======================================================================
* '[https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/bram-stoker/dracula Dracula]' at
Standard Ebooks
* , text version of 1897 edition.
*
* [https://research.library.kutztown.edu/dracula-studies/ 'Journal of
Dracula Studies']


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