Dracula: A horror fiction got it's place in popular culture

Dracula is a Gothic horror novel by Irish writer Abraham (Bram) Stoker, which, after its inception, has successfully held a significant position in popular culture. 

Although vampire fiction was quite popular and thriving in then Europe, Dracula is the magnum opus of the very genre which can also be put into quite a few other genres like horror fiction, gothic fiction and invasion literature. 

The plot revolves around Jonathan Harker, a soon to be British solicitor who visits the Transylvanian Count Dracula in an obscure castle in the Carpathian Mountains to provide support for real estate related transactions on behalf of his (Harker's) employer, Peter Hawkins. 

Although initially amazed by the courteous behaviour of the Count, Harker becomes suspicious of his activities as the days pass by. 

As the story goes on in an epistolary format, the accounts of Harker's travel is known to the readers through his letter to his fiancée, Mina Murray. 

Another set of events are later mentioned where Mina's friend, Lucy Westenra, gets engaged to Arthur Holmwood who is a member of British nobility after getting marriage proposals from him, Dr John Seward and Quincey Morris. 

Meanwhile, through a series of events, Dracula boards a ship to England which reaches the shores of Whitby where coincidentally Lucy lives. Before that, Harker realised the truth about Dracula and was abandoned by the Count to his Sisters. 

Upon reaching England, Dracula possesses Lucy and creates terror in England. Through a long chain of events and by the involvement of a Dutch occultist cum doctor Abraham van Helsing, Dracula gets defeated after being followed to his native Transylvania. Lucy is the one to lose her life in the process. 

The whole book's narrative style is bound to make the reader a part of the whole adventure and the twists and turns of events is something that will coerce the reader to finish it in a single setting. 

There exists an excellent Bangla rendition by Sheba Prokashoni which has done a very good job in capturing the essence of the original version. 

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