This is a beautiful hardbound edition of Dracula that comes with gilded edges and elegantly designed endpapers. Dracula is an epistolary novel, written as a collection of realistic but completely fictional diary entries, telegrams, letters, ship’s logs, and newspaper clippings, all of which add a level of detailed realism to Stoker’s story. At the time of its publication, Dracula was considered a ‘straightforward horror novel’ based on imaginary creations of supernatural life. Dracula has been assigned to many literary genres including vampire literature, horror fiction, the gothic novel, and invasion literature. The novel touches on themes such as the role of women in Victorian culture, sexual conventions, immigration, colonialism, and post-colonialism. Although Stoker did not invent the vampire, he defined its modern form through this novel.
About the Author
Abraham ‘Bram’ Stoker was an Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula. He was born on November 8, 1847 in Dublin, Ireland. Stoker excelled as an athlete at Trinity College, Dublin, which he attended from 1864 to 1870. Stoker became interested in the theatre while a student and became the theatre critic for the Dublin Evening Mail. In 1878, Stoker married Florence Balcombe, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel James Balcombe and together they moved to London, where Stoker became acting manager and then business manager of Irving’s Lyceum Theatre, London, a post he held for twenty-seven years. While being manager for Irving and secretary and director of London’s Lyceum Theatre, he began writing novels, beginning with The Snake’s Pass in 1890 and Dracula in 1897. After suffering a number of strokes, Stoker died on 20 April 1912.
