Dracula
Bram Stoker · 1897
This book is rated Ages 13+. It isn't available on your library card.
Young solicitor Jonathan Harker travels deep into the Carpathian mountains to help a courteous old nobleman buy a house in England, but the peasants cross themselves as he passes and the Count's castle has no way out. Soon the shadow he met there begins to reach towards London and the people he loves most.
A gothic horror story with vampire attacks and deaths, illustrated through shadow, the moment before or the quiet aftermath, without gruesome detail.
Characters
Jonathan Harker
A young English solicitor sent to a remote Transylvanian castle to settle a London house sale, who records every strange sight.
Mina Murray
Jonathan's clever, steadfast fiancée, an assistant schoolmistress who practises shorthand and typewriting late into the night.
Count Dracula
An ancient Transylvanian nobleman of courtly manners and chilling habits who longs for the crowded streets of London.
Van Helsing
A brilliant Dutch professor of medicine and old lore, summoned from Amsterdam to puzzle out a baffling illness.
Lucy Westenra
Mina's sweet, golden-haired dearest friend, courted by three suitors and troubled by sleepwalking.
Dr Seward
A young doctor who runs a lunatic asylum beside Carfax and keeps a careful phonograph diary of his patients.
Arthur Holmwood
A handsome, devoted young gentleman who wins Lucy's heart and swears he would give his last drop of blood for her.
Quincey Morris
A cheerful, brave Texan adventurer who stays a loyal friend to his rivals for Lucy's hand.
Renfield
Dr Seward's strangest patient, who eats flies and spiders and speaks in fevered whispers of a coming Master.
Mr Swales
A gnarled Whitby fisherman nearly a hundred years old who scoffs at ghost stories on the churchyard bench.
About the story
Dracula follows Jonathan Harker, a young English solicitor who travels to a remote castle in the Carpathian Mountains to help a Transylvanian nobleman, Count Dracula, buy a house in London. His host is courteous but strange, and Jonathan soon realises he is less a guest than a prisoner. Meanwhile in England, his fiancée Mina and her friend Lucy Westenra are caught up in a run of unsettling events: a ship drifts into Whitby with a dead captain at the wheel, Lucy begins sleepwalking, and an asylum patient raves about a coming master.
Bram Stoker tells the story through journals, letters, telegrams and newspaper cuttings, so the reader pieces the danger together alongside the characters. The book moves from lonely mountain passes and a crumbling castle to Victorian London's crowded streets, and it deals with fear of the unknown, the pull between science and superstition, loyalty among friends, and the courage of ordinary people facing something they barely understand.
Published in 1897, Dracula did not invent the vampire, but it shaped how the world imagines one: the castle, the cape, the garlic, the crucifix. It remains one of the most influential horror novels ever written, and its slow-building suspense still works today.
This is a condensed picture-book retelling of Dracula in 135 illustrated pages with about 37 minutes of synthetic-voice narration. The pictures are AI illustrations drawn for this edition. Stoker's full original novel is free in the public domain and well worth reading too.
Adapted from Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897), public domain.
Questions
What is Dracula about?
A young English solicitor visits Count Dracula's castle in Transylvania to arrange a London property sale and discovers his host is something far more dangerous than an eccentric nobleman. The story follows him and a group of friends in England as they work out what the Count is and what he wants.
Who is the main character in Dracula?
No single character tells the whole story. Jonathan Harker opens it, and his fiancée Mina Murray, her friend Lucy Westenra, Dr John Seward and Professor Abraham Van Helsing all narrate parts of it. Count Dracula is the title character but almost never speaks for himself.
Is Dracula suitable for children or teens?
This edition is rated 13+. It has a frightening atmosphere, death, blood, menacing supernatural figures and some disturbing scenes, but no graphic gore. It suits teenagers and adults better than younger children.
How long does this edition of Dracula take?
The narration runs about 37 minutes across 135 illustrated pages, so most people can finish it in one sitting.
Is this the full text of Dracula?
No. It is a condensed retelling that keeps the main plot and some of Stoker's own lines. The complete novel is in the public domain and free to read.
Read the text version: every page's caption, with its picture, on one page.
