Dracula by Bram Stoker is a staple in my collection. In my youth, I was a huge vampire novel reader. I loved it all! It wasn’t the seductive nature of the vampires that pulled me in but the living forever and how much one could see in an entire lifetime. My father, not understanding, became worried about how much I loved them in fact. I couldn’t blame him, at the time he had displayed his concerns people had murdered to ‘become a vampire’ or ‘because a vampire told them to’. He was calmed when I explained it was more of history that could be seen, the living forever-young.

This book is a recommendation on it being a staple alone. If not for the vampires, but for it being a classic story. The book is wonderful and the movie with Gary Oldman that came out in 1992 is one of my favorites.

Synopsis:

Dracula is an 1897 Gothic horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula’s attempt to move from Transylvania to England so he may find new blood and spread undead curse, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing. 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, and the novel has spawned numerous theatrical, film and television interpretations.