Everyone knows the name "Dracula," but the majority have only seen the legendary Transylvanian Count on the silver screen or through pop culture; few indeed have actually read the work that started it all.

One cannot claim to be a fan of vampire literature or of Dracula himself without having read Bram Stoker's tremendous work of gothic horror. Think that Dracula and other vampires can't be out in daylight? Wrong--they simply have no powers during the day, which you'd know if you read this extraordinary book.

Written in epistolary form (that is, as a series of letters and diary entries), the story is presented from the viewpoints of the main characters, from Jonathan Harker to his wife Mina to Dr. van Helsing. Rather than detracting from the story, this format breaks up what would otherwise be a rather long manuscript into manageable chunks and adds to the historical character of the novel.

Modern film interpretations have presented Stoker's story through the eyes of each producer, director, and screenwriter, with nearly all making wholesale changes--Mina Harker, for instance, is NOT the reborn lost love of Count Dracula as Francis Ford Coppola would have us believe. Many others who have "read" Dracula have done so through abridged texts that distort the story through omission. Pick up and read the story that started it all in its intended format... Bram Stoker's Dracula. You won't regret it.

Although this book was originally published many years ago it is still one of the most frightening horror stories ever published. Written in diary form it introduces the reader to the young English Lawyer Jonathan Harker, his wife to be Mina, the enigmatic Professor Van Helsing and various other colorful characters that make this story so deliciously scary.
At the heart of the story is the Vampire,Count Dracula of Transylvania who has decided to take residence in England and in doing so seals the fate of several people. One of the Count's first victim's is Mina's best friend Lucy who becomes a Vampire herself and suffers the fate of a stake through the heart and having her head cut off. Soon it is a race against time to stop Dracula getting his fangs into Mina as well, and only the brave Van Helsing and his trusty companions can save the day. Bram Stoker has written a very sexy and scary book for his time, and it is no wonder that Count Dracula's appeal in this form has not diminished over the years.

After having seen numerous treatments of the Dracula story, I wrongly assumed I new it pretty well. After stumbling through the first few chapters, I got the swing of its style. Mr. Stoker used a rather novel approach in creating this novel. The perspective of the story changes with each chapter. You read narrative from many different characters. Awkward at first, later it gives the impression of a balanced account of the events. It seems to make the events more believable. A note now forgotten by many is this was a "current" story when written. It was not a piece of colorful historical fiction.

The reader is not biased by the narrator's point of view. Anne Rice's "Interview with a Vampire" is told from Louis' perspective. That very story is given a different spin from Lestat in "The Vampire Lestat". With Dracula, all players are backing up everyone elses story. The chilling effect, is that it seems true. I was very pleased that a hundred year old story could hold such a grip on me. Actually, it was I that had the grip, a tight fisted one, on the book until I finished.