Search - Dracula

"Welcome to my house. Come freely. Go safely. And leave something of the happiness you bring"!

Sounds like something fine living maven Martha Stewart would say, doesn't it? Or perhaps the Persian poet Omar Khayyam? Well, you'd be wrong on both counts, as this lovely little welcome speech is from none other then the Count of all counts: Dracula.


I'm sorry it took me so long to read this book. Gotta admit that after the Epic Fail that was Frankenstein, I was leary of picking up another horror classic to read around Halloween, but thankfully Bram Stoker is no Mary Shelley.

Even after the recent craze in vampire lit., Dracula has the power to chill and entertain the reader because he's no glamourous, misunderstood hero. He's what a vampire with any balls has been to folklore mythology for centuries; a souless, depraved, blood-sucking leach in society.

From the first riveting pages describing Jonathan Harker's trip to Dracula's castle to the last denouement when all the main characters come back to the same castle to kill Drac (or die trying), Dracula is a well written, beautifully characterized and fully realized Victorian horror classic. Written by several of the characters in a series of diary entries, telegrams, newspaper articles, etc., it's easier to get caught up in the story then you might think. The pacing is, for the most part, good. Yes, it does have the signature melodrama that Victorian literature is known for, with some swooning and anguished cries by women and men alike, but other then that it is a surprisingly modern novel, and more graphic then I expected.

If you're looking for a good Halloween read this year, and are in a dither between Frankenstein and Dracula, take my advice and throw Frankie on the fire to warm your toes while you settle back for a genuinely scary novel.