"Dracula", by Bram Stoker, copyright 1897, by Bram Stoker, published by Grosset and Dunlap, New York, undated [1931] coinciding with the release of the movie, no illustrations.

"Dracula" is an 1897 Gothic horror novel

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 the 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. Although, Stoker did not invent the vampire, he defined its modern form, and the novel has spawned numerous theatrical, film and television interpretations.

Between 1879 and 1898, Stoker was a business manager for the world-famous Lyceum Theatre in London, where he supplemented his income by writing a large number of sensational novels, his most famous being the vampire tale Dracula published on 26 May 1897.

Parts of it are set around the town of Whitby, where he spent summer holidays. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, authors such as H. Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, and H. G. Wells wrote many tales in which fantastic creatures threatened 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. Victorian readers enjoyed it as a good adventure story like many others, but it would not reach its iconic legendary status until later in the 20th century when film versions began to appear.

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".

"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". Stoker's notes for "Dracula" show that the name of the count was originally "Count Wampyr", but while doing research, Stoker became intrigued by the name "Dracula", after reading William Wilkinson's book "Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia with Political Observations Relative to Them" (London 1820), which he found in the Whitby Library, and consulted a number of times during visits to Whitby in the 1890s. The name "Dracula" was the patronym (Draculea) of the descendants of Vlad II of Wallachia, who took the name "Dracul" after being invested in the Order of the Dragon in 1431.

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Original publisher's red cloth (some spots of surface wear on the back-board: see picture); 5.1/4" x 7.3/4"; name and "38" is written inside the front cover, endpapers are not creased at the hinges; 354 pages + publisher's add; nice cream-color paper, one small page corner fold, very good binding and condition. [l5ka]