A review in the Athenaeum (June 26,1897) was typical: “Mr Stoker’s way of presenting his matter and still more the matter itself, are of too direct and uncompromising a kind. The enduring nature of the novel (continuously in print since first published in 1897) is surprising when you consider its initial reception (with rare exceptions ) was somewhat reticent. The British author Clive Leatherdale has characterised Batman as “the count cleansed of his evil and endowed with a social consciousness.” Who could forget the actor, Bela Lugosi’s haunting Hungarian accent in the 1931 film version: “I am Dracula … I do not drink wine.” But a glass of AB negative would no doubt lift his spirits! The book itself has inspired more film and stage adaptations than any novel in history. The appropriation of Dracula has resulted in – among others – a counting Count on Sesame Street, Disney’s Ducula, a breakfast cereal called Count Chocula, Drac Snax to munch on and a filmmaking oeuvre that’s kept turnstiles ticking over since Nosferatu in 1922. What then is the novel’s perennial appeal 100 years after publication? One word – eroticism – and its subtle blend (sometimes brazen) with the ‘gothic’ has cast Stoker’s protagonist as the quintessential moniker of all that encapsulates vampirism.ĭracula’s subject and theme have been adapted by playwrights, screenwriters, advertisers and various cults since the caped seducer was ‘conceived’ (along with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein) at a dinner party hosted by Lord Byron in 1816. His was not the first, nor will it be the last reference to the sinister world of the ‘Un-dead’. No, not a letter to a men’s magazine, but an edited extract from English literature’s most enduring vampire novel – Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Then I could feel the soft, shivering touch of her lips … just touching, pausing. I closed my eyes in languorous ecstasy – and waited.” “The girl advanced and bent over me… went on her knees. She arched her neck … Lower and lower went her head … I could hear the churning sound of her tongue … Now I felt the hot breath … the sensitive skin on my throat began to tingle.
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