All-expenses-paid work trips abroad are all fun and games until you find out your boss is a blood-sucking vampire. This is exactly what happens to young lawyer Jonathon Harker when he’s hired by the mysterious Count Dracula to go to Transylvania and help him purchase an estate in England. Jonathan soon unearths the dark secrets lurking in the castle, so the Count imprisons him, heads across the channel and tries to make a meal out of Harker’s fiance Lucy and her beautiful friend Mina.
Why it’s so famous?
Despite being the most notorious vampire story in the world, the book itself was not actually that popular when it was first published in 1897. It caught on much later when the story of the big old blood-sucking bat was brought to life on the stage and on screen. While Stoker didn’t invent vampires, he did create a lot of the mythology that everyone associates with them today. We have him to thank for Buffy, Twilight, and Sesame Street’s maths-loving Count Von Count.
Why you should read it today?
One of the causes of the original vampire legends back in the day was the unexplained outbreak of disease. Back before we could see tiny organisms through microscopes, no one understood how illnesses were spread and strange symptoms would often be blamed on the supernatural. Just like an infection, vampires can move invisible among crowds and their condition can spread when they get too close to a person. Reading Bram Stoker’s novel in light of the recent coronavirus pandemic gives a whole new insight on why everyone is so scared of spooky old Dracula. You can even think of holy water as the Victorian’s answer to hand sanitizer...