This is, I suppose, the main text, if not quite the first,
to properly introduce and popularise the legends of the vampire to late Victorian society, both in this country and across the West. And it does this very well indeed; the Count is a superb villain, odd though it is that we see so much of him in the opening chapters, with poor Jonathan Harker trapped in his castle, yet thereafter he is spoken of more often than he is seen, with the character of Van Helsing there throughout to impress upon him his many, many powers. Indeed, Dracula's powers are immense, far beyond those we usually associate with vampires, and his nightly presence feels ever-present. His slow, horrible killing of Lucy is deeply effective, and gives us a real sense of threat for the back half of the novel.
And then there's the scene where he has Mina imbibe his own blood, damning her by ensuring she will become like him, unless he dies soon. And that chilling sentence "This is not the first time, or the second, that your veins have appeased my thirst!" Brrr...
And yet, despite the novel working well in terms of structure and effective horror- some say the bits with Lucy slowly being drained to death drag, but I certainly don't- the novel has little deeper to offer. Yes, we can comment on how the novel reveals the anxieties of its time, but that is incidental, and largely unintentional. The characters are all very much stock types, with no real depth. The prose may sing at times, but for an epistolary novel this gives us very little in terms of real interiority. These characters have no real depth, they are characters in a grand guignol. And the speech patterns of Van Helsing, in particular, become annoying very quickly.
A mixed bag of a novel, then. But it's a fascinating artifact in the history of the vampire trope, and an entertaining read.
Having been involved in Dracula Daily myself, I do have to say that it gets rather funny at times. Including an epic slam on English tourists.
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