This gothic novel is a timeless classic and one I can read over and over again and still come away as emotional as I did the first time I read it in primary school. Whilst not the first book written about vampires, Stoker's work has been the basis of every tale of the Nosferatu ever since. There is a magic in his writing that has ensured the lure of Dracula never ends.

Stoker's ability to describe events in such detail ensures that the reader feels as though they too are in the crumbling Castle Dracula in Transylvania or walking along the waterfront of Whitby hunting down a ship carrying the infamous vampire.

The novel itself is written from the viewpoints of all the main characters who encounter Dracula, bar one - Renfield who is a patient at an insane asylum. I always found it intriguing that we never see events through the eyes of the Count himself and would have been very interested to see what he felt about being hunted through Victorian era Europe. The world for him of course has evolved greatly over hundreds of years and I always wondered to myself 'Why now?' as in what was it that made Dracula leave Transylvania for London at that point. Whilst the obvious thing is the sheer amount of people living there and whilst there is so much life going about people, they rarely notice the dead or missing? That could have been true for other periods in history and places across Europe. (Obviously I know it was written during Victoria's reign but still, curiosity and I'm the cat)

Told through diary entries, letters and newspaper articles Stoker ensures that the reader is given each person's encounter with Dracula and the various beings under his control in wonderful detail. It is of course, Jonathan Harker's viewpoint that is the most disturbing and long as he suffers months with the Count, his three 'brides' and the wolves that linger at the Count's bidding. There are moments when Harker is still in Transylvania that I feel 'spooked' by the story, as you witness the change in the young lawyer from a strong confident man to one who is a shadow of his former self due to what he witnesses. (I won't spoil it for those who haven't read this incredible tale)

Whilst the story is quite simple at heart, we witness many of Victorian England's ideologies and its follies. There is a battle between science and religion as science truly came into its own during this time. The female characters are both at times victims of their own sex, how they are to be guarded and protected from things that would affect their frailty in comparison to strong minded men. Victorian tales often have the damsel in distress play a large role in their telling and whilst Lucy and Mina are strong-minded and relatively modern women for the time? They are also damsels in distress and victims of Dracula's desire to create vampires in England.

Stoker clearly explored so many aspects of mankind both from the religious and the scientific point of view when writing Dracula. He was in my humble opinion a genius and a man whose thoughts and views whilst being very much of the time, were also that of the future. I truly believe Dracula will have a place in literature for eternity even if the Count himself may not.