Movies - Dracula

	Movies - Dracula

Dracula (1897) is a novel by Irish author Bram Stoker, and the name of the world's most famous vampire character.

Dracula has been attributed to many literary genres including horror fiction, the gothic novel and invasion literature. Structurally it is an epistolary novel, that is, told as a series of diary entries and letters. Literary critics have examined many themes in the novel, such as the role of women in Victorian culture, sexuality, immigration and folklore. Although Stoker did not invent the vampire, the novel's influence on the popularity of vampires has been singularly responsible for scores of theatrical and movie interpretations throughout the 20th century.

Novel background

Between 1878 and 1898 Stoker managed the world-famous London Lyceum Theatre, where he supplemented his income by writing a large number of sensational novels, his most famous being the vampire tale Dracula
published in 1897. Parts of it are set around the town of Whitby, where he was living at the time. While Dracula is famous today (due in large part to its 20th century life on film), it was not an important or famous work for Victorian readers, being just another pot-boiler adventure among many. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s authors such as H. Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson and H.G. Wells wrote many tales in which fantastic creatures threaten the British Empire. Invasion literature was at a peak, and Stoker's formula of an invasion of England by continental European influences was by 1897 very familiar to readers of fantastic adventure stories.

Before writing Dracula, Stoker spent seven years researching European folklore and stories of vampires, being most influenced by Emily Gerard's 1885 essay "Transylvania Superstitions". Though it is the most famous vampire novel ever, Dracula was not the first. It was preceded and partially inspired by Sheridan Le Fanu's 1871 Carmilla, about a lesbian vampire who preys upon a lonely young woman. The image of a vampire portrayed as an aristocratic man, like the character of Dracula, was created by John Polidori in The Vampyre (1819), during the summer spent with Frankenstein creator Mary Shelley and other friends in 1816. Polidori is many times credited as the creator of the vampire genre in fiction, but his vampire story was inspired by elements of Lord Byron's vampire poem, The Giaour (1813).

The Lyceum Theatre where Stoker worked between 1878 and 1898 was headed by the tyrannical actor-manager Henry Irving, who was Stoker's real-life inspiration for the mannerisms of Dracula, and who Stoker hoped would play Dracula in a stage version. Although Irving never did agree to do a stage version, Dracula's dramatic sweeping gestures and gentlemanly mannerisms drew their living embodiment from Irving.

The Dead Un-Dead was one of Stoker's original titles for Dracula, and up until a few weeks before publication, the manuscript was titled simply The Un-Dead. The name of Stoker's count was originally going to be Count Vampyre, but while doing research Stoker ran across an intriguing word in the Romanian language: "Dracul", meaning "Devil" (or "Dragon"). There was also a historic figure known as Prince Vlad Dracula (Vlad the Impaler), but whether or not Stoker based his character on him remains debatable (see "Historical connections" below).

Dracula is an epistolary novel, written as collection of diary entries, telegrams, and letters from the characters, as well as fictional clippings from the Whitby and London newspapers. This literary style, made most famous by one of the most popular novels of the 19th century, The Woman in White (1860), was considered rather old-fashioned by the time of the publication of Dracula, but it adds a sense of realism and provides the reader with the perspective of most of the major characters.

Dracula has been the basis for countless films and plays. Three of the most famous are Nosferatu
(1922), Dracula (1931), and Bram Stoker's Dracula
(1992). Nosferatu was produced while Stoker's widow was still alive, and the filmmakers were forced to change the setting and the names of the characters for copyright reasons. The vampire in Nosferatu is called Count Orlok rather than Count Dracula. Bram Stoker's Dracula, while closer to the novel's plot than most movies produced earlier (or since), reimagines the Count as a tragic figure instead of a monster. It adds an opening sequence that focuses on the Count's Romanian background, and inserts a new romantic subplot into the story.

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Movies - Dracula

Novel background

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