A young solicitor (a type of lawyer) Jonathan Harker goes to Transylvania to sell a house in England to a nobleman named Dracula. After living in the castle for a week, he realizes that Dracula is a vampire. Dracula traps Harker in his castle with three other vampire women (who are called his brides) and goes to England, by hiding on a ship and killing the crew. When he gets to England, he bites a young woman called Lucy Westenra and turns her into a vampire. Lucy is then killed by Abraham van Helsing (a medical doctor) and the other characters in the book. Then Dracula bites Jonathan's wife Mina. Because of this, the other characters try to defeat Dracula, by chasing him back to Transylvania and killing him.
Ideas for the story
People have written about where Stoker got his ideas for the Dracula story. It has been said that Stoker's mother Charlotte telling him of the events of the terrible cholera plague in Sligo, Ireland may have given him some ideas. These included:[1]
Doctors trying to stop people dying and then being killed.[1]
Smells and mists associated with terrible things.[1]
People being buried when they were not dead and some not dying.[1]
The idea of blood may have come from Bram's early years when he was unhealthy and in bed all the time and doctors may have tried bleeding him to make him healthy.[2]
Ideas for the person of Dracula may have been taken from Henry Irving. Stoker worked for Irving at the Lyceum Theatre in London for 30 years.[3]
Most famous adaptations of Dracula
1922, Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror). First adaptation of the novel. Directed by F. W. Murnau. Max Schreck has the role of Count Orlok. The movie director could not get permission to use the actual story from Stoker's widow, who ordered many copies of the movie to be destroyed after its release.
