“Brave lad! A moment’s courage, and it’s done. This stake must be driven through her. It will be a fearful ordeal - be not deceived in that - but it will be only a short time, and then you will rejoice more than your pain was great […].”

Johnathan Harker travels deep into the hills of Transylvania to Count Dracula. Harker needs to arrange final matters for the new housing for Count Dracula in London. But something’s off. Local people make crosses when they hear where he’s going. Why are people so afraid of this Count?

When reading about vampires you simply have to read the founders of founders, the father of all vampire stories, Bram Stokers Dracula. This classic gothic novel is a classic for a reason. It was mind blowing at the time by its dark atmosphere. The eerie, gloomy and sinister Count frightened many. It was a pioneering work by displaying longing, oppressed sexual feelings and of course by gruesome acts of drinking blood. However, besides the iconic portrait of Dracula, the vivid characters like Jonathan, Mina and Lucy and the wonderful writing I had some issues with Stokers novel. Least of these issues was the extremely long and repetitive ending. No, what made my skin crawl were the racist descriptions of the native Hungarian people, the antisemitic remarks in this book and the sexist characterization of female behavior. Although this can be seen as a consequence of zeitgeist, it is something to take in account when reading this novel. See through that, Dracula is a masterpiece iconic and undefeated, but once seen it’s hard to be unseen.