There, on a bed of earth, was Count Dracula. At first Jonathan thought he was dead. His eyes were open, and his face was pale. No breath came from his mouth or nose, and there was no sign of a heart in his chest. But there was something about his eyes that frightened Jonathan. They did not have the glassy look of death. They looked up into the air above him, but they were filled with a terrible hate. | Introduction There on a bed of earth was Count Dracula. At first Jonathan thought he was dead. His eyes were open and his face was pale. No breath came from his mouth or nose and there was no sign of a heart in his chest. But there was something about his eyes that frightened Jonathan. They did not have the glassy look of death. They looked up into the air above him but they were filled with a terrible hate. Count Dracula lives in a large castle in Transylvania but he wants to buy a house in England. A London law company sends Jonathan Harker to Castle Dracula to help the count with his business. Dracula is friendly and polite to his guest but something is wrong. Why are the doors to the rooms in the castle all locked Why aren t there any mirrors Why does the count only wake up at night and why does he seem so strangely interested in pictures of Jonathan s girlfriend Mina When Jonathan discovers a terrible secret about Count Dracula he wants to escape. But how He is a prisoner in the castle. Will he ever see England and Mina again When does a man stop being a man When does he start to become something different Towards the end of the 1800s many writers became interested in questions like these. Two of the most successful stories on this subject were Robert Louis Stevenson s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde 1886 and Oscar Wilde s Picture of Dorian Gray 1891 . Then in June 1897 came Bram Stoker s Dracula. Stoker s mother writing to him in London from Ireland said No book since Mrs Shelley s Frankenstein has been better or more frightening than yours. Dracula will make you a lot of money and you will be famous. Dracula became a bestseller and Stoker made some money. But he did not become famous until after his death. Dracula is now one of the most famous names in can find the book in more than forty languages and there have been more films about Count Dracula than about any other fictional person except Sherlock Holmes. Visitors to Romania are now shown Dracula s .
