Dracula : The towering masterpiece of fear

"More than any other monster of classic horror, Dracula pairs violent threat with a carnal one. Bram Stoker's Gothic novel revitalized the vampire legend." - The New York Times



I was afraid to raise my eyes...



Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of my mouth and chin and seemed about to fasten on my throat. Then she paused, and I could hear the churning sound of her tongue as it licked her teeth and lips, and could feel the hot breath on my neck. Then the skin of my throat began to tingle as one's flesh does when the hand that is to tickle it approaches nearer--nearer. I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the super--sensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there. I closed my eyes in a languorous ecstasy and waited - -waited with beating heart.



Praise for Dracula:



"More than any other monster of classic horror, Dracula pairs violent threat with a carnal one. Bram Stoker's Gothic novel revitalized the vampire legend." - The New York Times



"An exercise in dread ... something inhuman and utterly evil ... brimming with paranoia and a feeling of the unknowable ... only a few pages in and the story grabs you and won't let go." - The Guardian



"Stoker did not intend for Dracula to serve as fiction, but as a warning of a very real evil." - Time Magazine



"The towering masterpiece of fear." - Leonard Wolf



"Dracula remains immortal." - National Review



"Bram Stoker's Dracula is an apparition of repressed sex ... the effect of repression is to turn a hunger into a horror ... bestial, polluting, depleting, deathly, satanic, a fever in the blood ... the lurking menace in the shadow of every scene." - The New York Times



About the author:



Bram Stoker (1847-1912), the author of Dracula, was born in Dublin in 1847. A sickly child, Bram was bedridden for much of his boyhood until about the age of seven. As a youth, Stoker was intrigued by the stories told him by his mother. Especially influential to the mind of young Stoker were the stories she related about the cholera epidemic of 1832 which claimed thousands of lives. These cruel and vivid tales began to shape the young Stoker's imagination.



In 1863, having made a full recovery, Bram entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he achieved notable success not only as a mathematician and in the Philosophical Society but also as an athlete. After graduating, he made the acquaintance of celebrated stage actor, Sir Henry Irving, England's greatest interpreter of Shakespeare. Stoker spent nearly thirty years as Irving's amanuensis and as the manager of Irving's Lyceum Theatre. Irving, the heavy exposure to Shakespeare, and the world of the theatre had a profound effect on Stoker.



In 1897, Stoker published his masterpiece, Dracula. While the book garnered critical success after its release, it didn't achieve peak popularity until well after its author's death. Stoker died in London, England, on April 20, 1912, after battling through years of poor health and shaky financial footing.