Dracula by Bram Stoker is set in England and Transylvania in the late nineteenth century. The novel begins with the journey of a solicitor Jonathan Harker from London to Transylvania to negotiate a real estate transaction on behalf of his company for Count Dracula who wants to purchase properties in London. At the beginning Harker does not know that Count Dracula is a vampire. While travelling to Dracula’s castle Hawker has a foreboding of danger. Dracula is described as a tall, strongly built man with a very pale complexion and cruel-looking. Harker feels uneasy in the company of Dracula who forbids Harker from entering the closed rooms in the castle but Harker defies Dracula and explores the castle. In one of the rooms he encounters three vampire women who try to lure him. Harker eventually realizes that he is imprisoned inside the castle but miraculously manages to escape and return to London.
Dracula’s first victim is the beautiful Lucy Westenra who was the fiancée of Arthur Holmwood, a friend of Harker’s. After Lucy’s death Dracula targets Mina who is Lucy’s childhood friend and Harker’s wife. Holmwood and Harker along with their friends Quincey Morris, Dr. John Seward and Professor Van Helsing decide to save Mina from Dracula. The novel is in epistolary form and tells a terrifying story about a vampire who has lived for centuries by victimizing humans in order to be immortal and is destroyed with the help of God by six intelligent and courageous individuals.
Reviewed by Hannah George