Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker

PLEASE NOTE: AT THE REQUEST OF THE SHAKESPEARE HOTEL, we are not meeting on the usual first Thursday of the month, as it clashes with a football event. So, we are meeting on the first Tuesday of this month.

Meeting at the usual place, the Shakespeare Hotel, 200 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills (Upstairs), we will be discussing the ultimate vampire novel, Dracula.

Rather than a simple narration, the novel is written by bringing together a number of diary entries, letters and newspaper clippings. It speaks of an ancient and aristocratic Romanian Count, Count Dracula.

The novel begins with Jonathan Harker, a solicitor's clerk who travels from England to Transylvania to finalize a real estate deal for the Count. He stays overnight in the Count's castle, and then realises that he is a prisoner, and that Dracula isn't quite normal. Dracula subsequently travels to England where he preys on Lucy Westenra, who herself becomes a vampire. Can vampire expert, Professor Van Helsing, save the day?

AI tells me this book is about 400 pages long. The type of book where I find it helps to make a written note of the names of the characters while reading.

The format of the meeting is that we talk about the book in a fairly focused way for about an hour, and then the meeting formally ends. People tend to stay around to talk more about the book or anything else.