Book description
With an essay by John Sutherland.
'Alone with the dead! I dare not go out, for I can hear the low
howl of the wolf through the broken window'
A chilling masterpiece of the horror genre, Dracula also
illuminated dark corners of Victorian sexuality. When Jonathan Harker
visits Transylvania to advise Count Dracula on a London home, he makes
a horrifying discovery. Soon afterwards, a number of disturbing
incidents unfold in England: an unmanned ship is wrecked at Whitby;
strange puncture marks appear on a young woman's neck; and the inmate
of a lunatic asylum raves about the arrival of his 'Master', while a
determined group of adversaries prepares to face the terrifying Count.
The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in
English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the
beginning of the First World War.
Abraham 'Bram' Stoker (1847 - 1912) was a sickly child, unable to
stand until he was seven years old, and spent the majority of his
childhood reading before defying the odds by becoming a champion athlete
at Trinity College, Dublin. Starting his career as an Irish civil
servant, his love of theatre led him to become an unpaid drama critic
for the
Dublin Mail
and later manager and secretary for the famous actor Sir Henry Irving.
He also wrote a dozen books, of which
Dracula
(1897)
is without doubt the most famous. An immediate bestseller in Victorian
England, Stoker's masterpiece of the macabre has remained popular ever
since, as testified by the countless film adaptations of the novel.
