Critical Introduction

Bram Stoker's novel Dracula was first published in 1897, but the 1901 edition was the first to have an illustration, and this is the only illustration approved by Stoker himself.

How to sum up the complex and highly variable character of Dracula in a single image? We might be leered at by the giant bat or greeted by the genteel lord and owner of his castle (“a tall old man, clean-shaven save for a long white mustache, clad in black from head to foot, and without a single speck of colour about him anywhere”). We might see the wolf howling at the moon or the humanoid form dissolving into a mist in the moonlight. We might see a moment of great violence or the sleeping form of the monster in his coffin. Instead, this frontispiece presents a vertiginous scene that incorporates several elements. Dracula defies gravity as “he went down the wall, lizard fashion.” He seems winged, though it is not clear if he bears actual batwings or if this is his cloak. His hands and feet are splayed, somehow simian—or at least not quite human—and his head suits well Stoker's description of the “lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere.” The castle tower provides a classic element of gothic atmosphere. From the text, we learn that in this moment, Harker's horror is compounded by an additional realization: “I drew back and watched carefully, and saw the whole man emerge. It was a new shock to me to find that he had on the suit of clothes which I had worn whilst travelling here.”

The print is bold and graphic, with strong lines. The image is sharply contained within the black bounding lines of the page, which is ultimately dominated not by the image of the vampire, but by his name, “DRACULA,” which appears in thick capital letters across the top of the page, like a shouting news headline. The serifs on the letters—the little projections on the ends of lines in the typeface—are just a bit more pointed than we might expect, such that the “D” almost seems fanged.