Dracula | Notes

Notes

What is a literary classic and why are these classic works important to the world?

A literary classic is a work of the highest excellence that has something important to say about life and/or the human condition and says it with great artistry. A classic, through its enduring presence, has withstood the test of time and is not bound by time, place, or customs. It speaks to us today as forcefully as it spoke to people one hundred or more years ago, and as forcefully as it will speak to people of future generations. For this reason, a classic is said to have universality.

Abraham “Bram” Stoker was born in Clontarf, Ireland, on November 8, 1847. He spent much of his childhood confined to bed because of a serious but undiagnosed illness; later, as a teenager, he began to excel in sports and in mathematics. Stoker's literary abilities developed slowly, but had been evident even as a child, when he wrote some short horror stories.

Stoker began writing seriously in 1872, while working at Dublin Castle. He published Under the Sunset, a set of dark, disturbing stories aimed at children, but he did not achieve much public notoriety until the work for which he is most famous was published in 1897.

A college professor from Hungary had related some vampire legends to him, and it was from these stories that Stoker created Dracula, the novel and character that defined his literary career.

Critics were not kind toward Dracula, but the book quickly became a popular favorite and has remained so ever since. Income from the book, however, could not raise Stoker and his family out of poverty. He did continue to write, though, producing one more famous novel, The Lair of the White Worm (1911) and several others, which are less well known.

Bram Stoker died of a stroke on April 20, 1912, but Dracula is immortal.

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