Novel
Dracula
Bram Stoker · 1897
Opening lines
3 May. Bistritz.—Left Munich at 8:35 P. M., on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late.
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
A young lawyer leaves London for Transylvania, where a count is buying a house in England. The peasants cross themselves when he says where he is going, and the castle where he is received has neither servants nor mirrors. His host is courteous, curious about the English language, and absent all day. After a few days, the visitor realises that all the doors are locked, then sees his host climbing down the wall face against the stone, like a lizard.
Context
Its author wrote it in the hours left to him by his theatre job, worked on it for at least seven years, and made his notes without ever going to Eastern Europe. The count was at first to be called Wampyr and the action was to take place in Styria: on 8 August 1890, in the public library at Whitby, he opened the book of a former British consul in Bucharest and read in a note that in Wallachian the word dracula meant devil. In his notes, the old name was then struck out. A real shipwreck that occurred in that port gave him his ship, and a gravestone the name of a character.
Who it is for
A long novel, composed of letters, diaries and press cuttings; translated into French as early as 1920.
Prizes and reception
In 1913 its author's widow sold more than a hundred pages of notes for two pounds and two shillings; they did not enter a public collection until 1970.
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