Ashley+W-+Stocker+Dracula

=__**Dracula **__=

__**by Bram Stoker **__


==="No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and  === ===dear to his heart and eye the morning can be." -Dracula  ===

 Jonathan Harker, an English lawyer, travels to Transylvania for business purposes and stays at Castle Dracula with the mysterious Count Dracula. As Harker is on his way to the castle, the locals warn him about the Count, and give him items such as crucifixes. This freaks Harker out a little, but he continues on his journey to Castle Dracula. On the way to the castle, the carriage is almost attacked by wolves. The Count is a gracious and caring man when Harker meets him, but in time Harker realizes he is trapped in the castle with all of the doors locked, and the only windows look out over an enormous cliff. The more Harker thinks about being confined, the more hysteric he becomes. He realizes that the Count has supernatural powers that allow him to crawl down the side of the Castle.  "But my very feelings changed to repulsion and terror when I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over the dreadful abyss, face down, with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings" (Stoker 33)       One night Harker goes against the Count's wishes and goes into a room he was not supposed to go in. Harker is almost attacked by three female vampires, but the Count rescues him, telling the vampires that Harker belongs to him. While all this is going on, Harker's fiancee Mina tells about her letters with her friend Lucy. Lucy has been proposed to by three different men. John Seward, Arthur Holmwood, and an American named Quincey Morris. Lucy accepts Holmwood's proposal. One day when Mina visits Lucy, a ship is wrecked along the shore, and all that is found are 50 coffins shipped from Count Dracula and a large dog that disappears soon after the wreck. Coincidentally, after this event, Lucy starts sleepwalking at night. One night, Mina finds Lucy in the town cemetery and thinks she sees a dark person with glowing red eyes bending over Lucy. Lucy becomes pale and ill, and she bears two tiny red marks at her throat. Dr. Seward calls his old mentor, Professor Van Helsing. Suffering from brain fever, Harker reappears in the city of Buda-Pest. Mina goes to visit him there. Van Helsing arrives in Whitby and after his examinating Lucy, he orders that her bedroom be completely covered with garlic to protect her from vampires.This helps for a while. She starts to recover, but her mother removes the smelly plants from the room, leaving Lucy vulnerable to vampires. Seward and Van Helsing spend quite some time trying to return Lucy to better health by having four blood transfusions. This doesn't work at all. "They never leave me; and they shall not till this unhappy business is over." (Stoker 301) "Be wise also, my friends. It is no common enemy that we deal with." (Stoker 301) "Alas! Alas! that dear Madam Mina should suffer." (Stoker 302) One night a wolf breaks into the where Lucy is staying. This gives Lucy's mother a heart attack, and the wolf kills Lucy. After Lucy's death, Van Helsing leads Holmwood, Seward, and Quincey Morris to visit her tomb. Van Helsing convinces them that Lucy has been transformed into a vampire like Dracula. The men don't believe him until they see Lucy preying on a defenseless child, which convinces them that she must be destroyed. They agree to destroy her to make sure that Lucy's soul will return to eternal rest. While the Lucy sleeps, Holmwood plunges a stake through her heart. Then they cut off her head and stuff her mouth with garlic. After these events, they pledge to destroy Dracula himself. Mina and Jonathan return to England and join forces with the others. Van Helsing and his band track down the coffins that the count uses as a sort of sanctuary during the night from Dracula's castle. Their efforts seem to be going well, but then one of Dr. Seward's mental patients lets Dracula into the asylum where the others are staying, allowing him to prey upon Mina. As Mina slowly changes into a vampire, the men destroy the coffins, forcing Dracula to run away to Transylvania. They cleanse Castle Dracula by killing the three female vampires and sealing the entrances with sacred objects such as crosses. The others catch up with the count just as he is about to reach his castle, and Jonathan and Quincey use knives to destroy him, and this is the end of the Count. "It was like a miracle; but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight." (Stoker 402) "I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there." (Stoker 403) I liked this book, because it was exciting and scary, but not too exciting to be lame, and not too scary to freak me out. It always kept me interested, because you never knew what the Count would come up with next, because he is such an unpredictable character. Some of the dialog is confusing because this book was written a long time ago, but I understood most of it. Also, it was a little hard to understand what was going on in the beginning, because of how the book is written. I was hooked on Johnathan's story, and then it switched to Mina all of a sudden and it was hard to understand why the story changed all of a sudden. But it made sense after a while, and it added to the effect and made the book original. I would definitely recommend this book to others. I give it 4 out of 5 stars. media type="youtube" key="Xw2-ZMhxTUs" height="344" width="425"
 * My Opinion of the book;**

A trailer for the movie 'Dracula' based on the book by Bram Stoker
<span style="display: block; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; background-color: rgb(29, 22, 22); text-align: center"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(230, 15, 15); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(55, 22, 22); text-align: right"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(252, 248, 248); text-align: left; display: block"><span style="display: block; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: left">About the Author: <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; color: rgb(15, 10, 10); background-color: rgb(253, 247, 247); text-align: left; display: block"> <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right; display: block">Little is known about author of the well known book, Dracula. Most biographers have had to rely on public records to determine the interests and life of author Bram Stoker. What they do know is that Bram Stocker was born in Dublin, Ireland, on November 8, 1847, the third son     <span style="display: block; color: rgb(214, 15, 10); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(46, 35, 35); text-align: right"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; background-color: rgb(29, 22, 22); text-align: center"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(230, 15, 15); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(55, 22, 22); text-align: right"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; color: rgb(15, 10, 10); background-color: rgb(253, 247, 247); text-align: left; display: block"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right; display: block">     <span style="display: block; color: rgb(214, 15, 10); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(46, 35, 35); text-align: right"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; background-color: rgb(29, 22, 22); text-align: center"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(230, 15, 15); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(55, 22, 22); text-align: right"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; color: rgb(15, 10, 10); background-color: rgb(253, 247, 247); text-align: left; display: block"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right; display: block">of seven c     <span style="display: block; color: rgb(214, 15, 10); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(46, 35, 35); text-align: right"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; background-color: rgb(29, 22, 22); text-align: center"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(230, 15, 15); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(55, 22, 22); text-align: right"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; color: rgb(15, 10, 10); background-color: rgb(253, 247, 247); text-align: left; display: block"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right; display: block">     <span style="display: block; color: rgb(214, 15, 10); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(46, 35, 35); text-align: right"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; background-color: rgb(29, 22, 22); text-align: center"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(230, 15, 15); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(55, 22, 22); text-align: right"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; color: rgb(15, 10, 10); background-color: rgb(253, 247, 247); text-align: left; display: block"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right; display: block">hildren. He graduated with honors in science, at Trinity College in Dublin, and he later returned for an M.A. degree. He was always interested in writing because he temporarily worked as a drama critic. In 1878, Stoker married Florence Balcombe. She had the choice of marrying either Bram Stoker or Oscar Wilde. Bram and Oscar remained friends afterwards, and Bram was also friends with Arthur Conan Doyle, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Mark Twain, and once he even met Theodore Roosevelt. Bram Stocker was known as being a writer    <span style="display: block; color: rgb(214, 15, 10); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(46, 35, 35); text-align: right"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; background-color: rgb(29, 22, 22); text-align: center"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(230, 15, 15); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(55, 22, 22); text-align: right"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; color: rgb(15, 10, 10); background-color: rgb(253, 247, 247); text-align: left; display: block">    <span style="display: block; color: rgb(214, 15, 10); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(46, 35, 35); text-align: right"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; background-color: rgb(29, 22, 22); text-align: center"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(230, 15, 15); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(55, 22, 22); text-align: right"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; color: rgb(15, 10, 10); background-color: rgb(253, 247, 247); text-align: left; display: block"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right; display: block">with great energy and talent. He del    <span style="display: block; color: rgb(214, 15, 10); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(46, 35, 35); text-align: right"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; background-color: rgb(29, 22, 22); text-align: center"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(230, 15, 15); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(55, 22, 22); text-align: right"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; color: rgb(15, 10, 10); background-color: rgb(253, 247, 247); text-align: left; display: block"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right; display: block">      <span style="display: block; color: rgb(214, 15, 10); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(46, 35, 35); text-align: right"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; background-color: rgb(29, 22, 22); text-align: center"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(230, 15, 15); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(55, 22, 22); text-align: right"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; color: rgb(15, 10, 10); background-color: rgb(253, 247, 247); text-align: left; display: block"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right; display: block"> ivered lectures, traveled extensively, toured with Irving's acting company, and he wrote several novels, as well as several non-fiction items. His first novel was called The Snake’s Pass, and was published in 1890. Then Bram wrote the book Dracula over a period of several years, starting in 1890, and was finally published in 1897. The book was never been out of publication since its release. While recovering from a seizure that occurred shortly after his close friend’s death, He wrote a non-fiction book which he called Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irvin. Stoker did not cease to write stories of horror and mystery after he finished Dracula. After Dracula, his novels of mystery and horror incl    <span style="display: block; color: rgb(214, 15, 10); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(46, 35, 35); text-align: right"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; background-color: rgb(29, 22, 22); text-align: center"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(230, 15, 15); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(55, 22, 22); text-align: right"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; color: rgb(15, 10, 10); background-color: rgb(253, 247, 247); text-align: left; display: block"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right; display: block">     <span style="display: block; color: rgb(214, 15, 10); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(46, 35, 35); text-align: right"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; background-color: rgb(29, 22, 22); text-align: center"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(230, 15, 15); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(55, 22, 22); text-align: right"><span style="display: block; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; color: rgb(15, 10, 10); background-color: rgb(253, 247, 247); text-align: right"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right; display: block">ude The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903), The Lady of the Shroud (1909), and The Lair of the White Worm (1911). Regardless of which novel Stoker himself considered his best, Dracula remains his most popular work, and it has spawned countless adaptations and spin-offs in plays, novels, and movies, as well as comic books. In his last years, Stoker's health declined rapidly, and the cause of his death, though clouded by mystery, has generated some substantial amount of discussion. his biography, cites Stoker's death certificate, which has as the cause of death the medical phrase Locomotor Ataxy--also called Tabes Dorsalis--known in those days as general paralysis of the insane, which implies, therefore, that Stoker had contracted syphilis, presumably around the turn of the century, and died of it. Stoker died on April 20, 1912, at the age of sixty-fo <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right; display: block">ur.

Bibliography: The Literature Network. Bram Stoker. Jalic Inc. 2008. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: left; display: block"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(214, 15, 10); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(46, 35, 35); text-align: right"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; background-color: rgb(29, 22, 22); text-align: center"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(230, 15, 15); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(55, 22, 22); text-align: right"><span style="display: block; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; color: rgb(15, 10, 10); background-color: rgb(253, 247, 247); text-align: right"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right; display: block"><http://www.online-literature.com/stoker/>    <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right; display: block">The Online Literature Library. Monday, 23-May-2005. Knowledge Matters Ltd.<span style="display: block; color: rgb(214, 15, 10); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(46, 35, 35); text-align: right"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; background-color: rgb(29, 22, 22); text-align: center"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(230, 15, 15); font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; background-color: rgb(55, 22, 22); text-align: right"><span style="display: block; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; color: rgb(15, 10, 10); background-color: rgb(253, 247, 247); text-align: right"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right; display: block">    <http://www.literature.org/authors/stoker-bram/dracula>