Dracula

Bram Stoker · Gothic Horror · 27 chapters · 13h 42m · 14 voices

The ultimate vampire novel, told through journals, letters, and newspaper clippings. Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania to assist a mysterious nobleman — and becomes entangled in a centuries-old evil that follows him back to England.

Dracula is not narrated. It is assembled — journals, letters, a ship's log, phonograph cylinders, newspaper cuttings — and every one of those documents is somebody's voice, written to sound like them. A single reader has to perform that whole archive alone, which is why most recordings flatten it into one continuous story. Here Harker's journal, Mina's shorthand, Seward's dictation and Van Helsing's fractured English are separate voices from the start, so the novel's actual structure is audible: five people, none of whom can see the whole picture, writing down what happened to them. About fourteen hours across twenty-seven chapters, and the longest sustained argument for casting a book this way.

The voices that carry it

Van Helsing is the hardest part in the catalogue — Dutch-inflected, grammatically wrong on purpose, and the emotional centre of the last third. Count Dracula speaks in only a handful of scenes and is cast for courtesy rather than menace, which is how Stoker wrote him.

Chapter one plays without an account. Start listening to Dracula.

Voice cast

13 characters plus the narrator, each with their own voice. All the voices of Dracula.

  • Jonathan Harker — Young English solicitor in his mid-20s. Travels to Transylvania on business and becomes Dracula's prisoner. Main narrator of the opening and closing chapters.
  • Count Dracula — Ancient vampire lord of Transylvania, hundreds of years old. Tall, pale, aquiline features with sharp white teeth and dark hypnotic eyes. Controls wolves, bats, and weather.
  • Mina — Jonathan Harker's fiancee, later wife. Intelligent young woman and assistant schoolmistress. Becomes psychically linked to Dracula after being forced to drink his blood.
  • Van Helsing — Elderly Dutch professor, physician, scientist, and metaphysician. Abraham Van Helsing. White-haired, stocky. Former teacher of Dr. Seward. Encyclopaedic knowledge of the supernatural.
  • Dr. Seward — Director of Purfleet lunatic asylum. Late 30s, British, professionally rigorous. Former student of Van Helsing. Records his diary on a phonograph.
  • Lucy — Mina's closest friend. Young, beautiful English socialite. Dracula's first English victim — drained through repeated night visits and transformed into a vampire after death.
  • Arthur Holmwood — English nobleman, later Lord Godalming. Lucy's fiance. Late 20s, athletic, handsome, wealthy.
  • Quincey Morris — Young Texan American adventurer. One of Lucy's three suitors. Experienced frontiersman. Carries a bowie knife. Dies heroically at the climax.
  • Renfield — Patient confined in Seward's asylum. Suffers from zoophagous mania, consuming creatures to absorb their life force. Falls under Dracula's thrall.
  • Mrs. Westenra — Lucy's widowed mother. Elderly with a serious heart condition. Caring, conventional, oblivious to the supernatural danger around her daughter.

Chapters

  1. Chapter I: Jonathan Harker’s Journal 32m
  2. Chapter II: JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL--_continued_ 30m
  3. Chapter III: JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL--_continued_ 32m
  4. Chapter IV: JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL--_continued_ 32m
  5. Chapter V: _Letter from Miss Mina Murray to Miss Lucy Westenra._ 18m
  6. Chapter VI: Mina Murray’s Journal 30m
  7. Chapter VII 31m
  8. Chapter VIII: Mina Murray’s Journal 33m
  9. Chapter IX 28m
  10. Chapter X 29m
  11. Chapter XI: _Lucy Westenra’s Diary._ 28m
  12. Chapter XII: Dr. Seward’s Diary 31m
  13. Chapter XIII: DR. SEWARD’S DIARY--_continued_ 34m
  14. Chapter XIV: Mina Harker’s Journal 32m
  15. Chapter XV: DR. SEWARD’S DIARY--_continued_ 29m
  16. Chapter XVI: DR. SEWARD’S DIARY--_continued_ 24m
  17. Chapter XVII: DR. SEWARD’S DIARY--_continued_ 29m
  18. Chapter XVIII: Dr. Seward’s Diary 33m
  19. Chapter XIX: Jonathan Harker’s Journal 30m
  20. Chapter XX: Jonathan Harker’s Journal 31m
  21. Chapter XXI: Dr. Seward’s Diary 32m
  22. Chapter XXII: Jonathan Harker’s Journal 27m
  23. Chapter XXIII: Dr. Seward’s Diary 29m
  24. Chapter XXIV: Dr. Seward’s Phonograph Diary, Spoken by van Helsing 28m
  25. Chapter XXV: Dr. Seward’s Diary 32m
  26. Chapter XXVI: Dr. Seward’s Diary 38m
  27. Chapter XXVII: Mina Harker’s Journal 41m

About this recording

Does the full-cast format suit Dracula in particular?

More than almost any other novel here. Dracula is written as a collection of documents by different people, so separate voices reproduce the book's structure rather than imposing something on it.

How long is the Dracula audiobook?

About fourteen hours across twenty-seven chapters, which is close to the full unabridged text. Chapter one plays without an account.

Is Count Dracula in much of the book?

Less than people expect. He dominates the opening chapters in Transylvania and then appears rarely, mostly at a distance, for the rest — which is part of why the novel stays frightening.