Audible Review: Dracula by Bram Stoker

Title: Dracula

Series: Stand-Alone

Author: Bram Stoker

Genre: Classic, Gothic Horror

Publication Date: November 20th 2008 by Books in Motion (first published May 26th 1897)

Narrator: Multiple Narrators

Format: Audible

Source: Library Overdrive

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Rating:

Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” is the novel that introduced the fictional creature known as the vampire to millions. It is considered by many as the single most important work in the gothic vampire horror genre. “Dracula,” while not the first appearance of the vampire in literature, is certainly the work that is most readily identified with the vampire genre and has spawned countless imitations and references. The novel is set sometime in the late 19th century and begins by being told from the perspective of Jonathan Harker, a young English legal practitioner who is traveling to the castle of Count Dracula, in the Carpathian Mountains on the border of Transylvania, to perform some legal services for the Count. Harker upon meeting Count Dracula finds him a strange and eerie man, one with a dark secret. Dracula needs the help of Harker to execute his plan to relocate to England in order to find new blood and spread the curse of the undead. The only thing standing in his way is a small group of people led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing, who know what he secretly is and have vowed to stop him.

Now I have seen a lot of films of Dracula or base off Dracula and I quite enjoy watching them, I also read a lot of books base off Dracula which I quite love and enjoy as well. So I thought it was high time I read the actual Dracula book by Bram Stoker, but I really wanted to listen too the audio book first. So I actually started reading Dracula on audio on libravox on September 28, 2017, but I really didn't like the audio on libravox. So I started to re-read from the very beginning on overdrive on November 30, 2017, which I prefer to hear the audio books on overdrive for now on. But I absolutely love and enjoy Dracula so much on overdrive it was so much better than on libravox in my opinion, but libravox is still a really good audio book source. Libravox is totally free and it has great classics books on it's list, I still say give it a try if you are looking for a totally free audio books for classic literature. Than libravox is for you! But anyways sorry I am getting side tracked here, let me get back too my review. Which I don't know what too write down, because I think every readers knows what Dracula is about. But I absolutely love and enjoy this great gothic horror book. I was on my toes and on the edge on my set reading throughout the whole book. I just felt horrible for poor Lucy and a character that I didn't even know that person exist in Dracula. I won't say who the character I am talking about is in case nobody has read Dracula before, but there is a side character that I absolutely love and adore. That I felt all the feels for that side character at the end of this book. I really enjoy the narration in this audio there were different people narrated it, but I just simply loved and enjoyed the different narration. I really didn't mind it at all. All and all I loved and enjoyed every bit of Dracula, that I hopefully will read more books by Bram Stoker in the near future!

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He was born Abraham Stoker in 1847 at 15 Marino Crescent – then as now called "The Crescent" – in Fairview, a coastal suburb of Dublin, Ireland. His parents were Abraham Stoker and the feminist Charlotte Mathilda Blake Thornely. Stoker was the third of seven children. Abraham and Charlotte were members of the Clontarf Church of Ireland parish and attended the parish church (St. John the Baptist located on Seafield Road West) with their children, who were both baptised there.

Stoker was an invalid until he started school at the age of seven — when he made a complete and astounding recovery. Of this time, Stoker wrote, "I was naturally thoughtful, and the leisure of long illness gave opportunity for many thoughts which were fruitful according to their kind in later years."

After his recovery, he became a normal young man, even excelling as an athlete (he was named University Athlete) at Trinity College, Dublin (1864 – 70), from which he graduated with honours in mathematics. He was auditor of the College Historical Society and president of the University Philosophical Society, where his first paper was on "Sensationalism in Fiction and Society".

In 1876, while employed as a civil servant in Dublin, Stoker wrote a non-fiction book (The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland, published 1879) and theatre reviews for The Dublin Mail, a newspaper partly owned by fellow horror writer J. Sheridan Le Fanu. His interest in theatre led to a lifelong friendship with the English actor Henry Irving. He also wrote stories, and in 1872 "The Crystal Cup" was published by the London Society, followed by "The Chain of Destiny" in four parts in The Shamrock.

In 1878 Stoker married Florence Balcombe, a celebrated beauty whose former suitor was Oscar Wilde. The couple moved to London, where Stoker became business manager (at first as acting-manager) of Irving's Lyceum Theatre, a post he held for 27 years. The collaboration with Irving was very important for Stoker and through him he became involved in London's high society, where he met, among other notables, James McNeil Whistler, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the course of Irving's tours, Stoker got the chance to travel around the world.

The Stokers had one son, Irving Noel, who was born on December 31, 1879.

Bram Stoker died in 1912, and was cremated and his ashes placed in a display urn at Golders Green Crematorium. After Irving Noel Stoker's death in 1961, his ashes were added to that urn. The original plan had been to keep his parents' ashes together, but after Florence Stoker's death her ashes were scattered at the Gardens of Rest.