Dracula - Bram Stoker

When my school set me the difficult task of reading Dracula, by Bram Stoker, in two weeks, I thought I would jump at the opportunity to give you my opinion of it. Two weeks? That’s not too difficult you may cry! However, since my copy was over 300 pages long with very small writing (and other reviews have spoken about 500-page copies), plus the fact that it was written in the 19th century, it suddenly became more demanding. When you think of Dracula, you may think of Nosferatu, or Christopher Lee’s camp portrayals in the Hammer films, or the 1931 film by Bela Lugosi. Over time, the image of Dracula has become cemented in popular culture, and even little kids will ...  Read the complete review

In every age there comes a clamour for a certain type of story. This may be romance, it may be horror, it may even transcend any normal boundaries and venture into fantasy. Just occasionally it may be all three. Abraham (Bram) Stoker (1847 ? 1912) was born in Dublin. The son of a civil servant he overcame an incapacitating childhood illness to become a civil servant himself in later life. An accomplished writer, he had a number of books published (examples being The Snake's Pass 1890 and The Lair of The White Worm 1911) of which Dracula is by far the most famous. In an era that demanded more and more crime, ghost and horror stories, the ...  Read the complete review

The figure of the vampire has become a modern cultural icon. We all have at some time seen the different versions that have appeared over the years, whether it’s the classic Universal studios 1930’s ‘Dracula’ played by Bela Lugosi, the 60’s Hammer studios version by Christopher Lee, the 70’s ‘Nosferatu’ starring Klaus Kinski or the up to date MTV pop video style vampires of Buffy, Angel and Blade. Despite more modern competition Dracula is still the undoubted king of vampire stories but how did it all start? The answer lies with ‘Dracula’ a horror novel written by Bram Stoker in 1897, although using ancient ...  Read the complete review

Mention the word Dracula to most people and images of Christopher Lee, Vincent Price and dodgy looking Hammer House bats on strings will no doubt spring to mind. Great fun though those undoubtably are, it is a shame that more people don't make the time to read the original Stoker novel which spawned them all. It is a shame, not only because of the quality of the writing and strong storyline which Stoker presents, but also because the style in which the book was written, was in itself, groundbreaking. Most people will be familiar with some, if not all of the plotline, even though it has been bastardised somewhat in the last 100 years. The ...  Read the complete review

I’m a great fan of the horror genre and in particular the works of one Stephen King, and while reading the foreword to his second novel (Salem’s Lot) I discovered that he had got his main inspiration for this book from the classic vampire novel Dracula. Never being one to simply take another’s word about whether a book (or anything) is any good I decided that it might be an idea if I read this “daddy of horrors” for myself, so I checked out Amazon and found that I could buy my very own copy for a paltry £1.50. At that price I felt I couldn’t really go wrong, so I ordered a copy and have spent the last few days reading (and trying to digest) it. So what is ...  Read the complete review