Dracula by Bram Stroker

This is a fictional book about a vampire named Dracula.

Synopsis:

Dracula is written in the form of letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It is set in Victorian England and Gothic Transylvania. It starts out with Jonathan Harker, an English lawyer, traveling to Castle Dracula in Transylvania to finish a real estate transaction with Count Dracula.

However, after arriving at the castle, he realizes he is a prisoner in the castle. Jonathan is almost attacked by three female vampires but is stopped by the count, telling them Jonathan belongs to him, and Jonathan tries to escape from the castle.

Also, Mina whom is Jonathan’s fiancé, her friend, Lucy, suddenly starts sleepwalking and becomes pale and ill for no explainable reason. Dr. Van Helsing tries to revive Lucy, performing four blood transfusions however he is unsuccessful, and Lucy is attacked by a wolf and killed.

Lucy has been transformed into a vampire so while she is sleeping Holmwood plunges a stake through her heart and then cuts off her head and stuffs her mouth with garlic.

Mina and Jonathan return to England and join with the other men in helping to finally destroy Count Dracula. To destroy him, they must find and consecrate the fifty boxes of earth that Dracula has brought with him to England. Finally, Dracula is destroyed with a knife through his heart and dies in the battle. Jonathan and Mina have a son named Quincey.

Review:

I enjoyed this book and liked reading about the quest to destroy Dracula.

“You must struggle and strive to live, though death would seem a boon unspeakable. You must fight death himself, though he come to you in pain, or in joy, by the day, or the night, in safety or in peril! On your living soul I charge you that you do not die-nay, nor think of death- till this great evil be past.”

“For in this enlightened age, when men believe not even what they see, the doubting of wise men would be his greatest strength. It would be at once his sheath and armor and his weapons to destroy us.”

“I suppose there is something in a woman’s nature that makes a man free to break down before her and express his feelings on the tender or emotional side without feeling it derogatory to his manhood.”

“But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan’s great knife, I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat. While at the same moment, Mr. Morris’s bowie knife plunged into the heart. It was like a miracle, but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight.”