Dracula by Bram Stoker

This classic novel tells of the famous Count Dracula’s arrival on the shores of Whitby in northeast England from his home in Transylvania and of his evil journey of destruction. 

Dracula was not literature’s first vampire but Bram Stoker’s creature is certainly the most influential and has given rise to a whole new genre of blood-sucking horror. 

The book was first published in 1897 and, as well as horror, can perhaps be considered part of what was at the time the popular genre of “invasion fiction.” Britain was at the height of its imperial power and this story plays on the public’s anxieties of conquest by a foreign, or in this case supernatural, power.