This is fantastic. Not just a background of Dracula but an exploration of Stoker's process as a writer. A chill feeling of suspense...

This is the most comprehensive documentary I've seen on the materials used to create the novel "Dracula".

I have to agree with one or two of the other comments in that its strange he didn't mention Carmilla...one of the first vampire stories and also written by an irishman...undoubtedly an influence but hey ho...still interesting nonetheless...I don't know what it is but there is something about the Max Shreck Nosferatu vampire that I have always found genuinely disturbing...of all the other draculas on film I have seen, from the Hammers to the francis ford coppela version, never seen one I really found terrifying...or really even mildly frightening...probably due to over saturation of the image...but there is something about that version, the way he looks, moves and the way the film is shot that is quite unsettling...and yet its so simple! I almost do believe the premise of that film shadow if a vampire, that they really did find a genuine vampire in Shreck and placed him on the screen!

Excellent documentary for anyone interested in Dracula.

Hi Eileen. I have the book of this series, it's absolutely fascinating. Christopher Frayling is both scholarly and witty!

Very interesting, thanks for uploading this! Victorian Horror has fascinated me ever since I saw the film adaptations of Dracula and read the novel.

Glad to see they used the B.B.C version starring Louis Jordan.

very intreresting. for a novel that is so detailed, i'm not surprised it took many years of research. j.

This book got me into gothic

Great additional info for my Gothic literature essay on Dracula! Thanks for uploading! :)

great program. Thank you

As would any proper fan of the horror genre (and the vampire in particular), I have seen Murnau's Nosferatu. I look at it as more of an allegorical tale masked with frightful images as in Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari. I wonder what early German cinema would be like if its patrons had had no knowledge of the writings of Dr. Sigmund Freud. Would they understand the symbolism in the film enough to enjoy it?

Enjoyable, but also strangely askew in details. There is no "Eastern European" vampire in VARNEY for example, and it ignores CARMILLA which almost certainly influenced Stoker.

Excelent host

Yes we do but youTube won't let us put it up!

Three of the four Frayling documentaries are fairly easy to find online. The one concerning Frankenstein is weirdly absent. Did Universal lay the lawyer pain down on anyone posting it, or is it merely lost?

Thanks for this. I've uploaded two more from this series. Do you have the fourth, about Frankenstein?

Actually Vlad was not Vlad IV, but Vlad III.

Vey informative as I was under the mistaken impression that Varney the Vampire was the other creature of horror a product of Lord Byron's challenge. What was created by Lord Byron and expanded by Dr. Polidori belongs among the fearsome fiends faced by Abbott & Costello-yes, I did say "fearsome fiends faced". Although one fiend only had a voice-the Invisible Man.

Hi Eileen, not seen you in years, but wish you the best ! Here in Hungary, where I live, old country people do not joke about vampyr. My copies of "The Graphic" and "Illustrated London News" for 1897 confirm that "Dracula" got pretty lousy reviews on its publication. It was considered a good blood and thunder thriller, nothing more ! As Frayling says, it is Cinema that has made it the most successful book since the Bible.

Audio doesn't work on the left ear

Would love to have the book to this series, what is the name of the book. Is it Nightmare: Birth Of Horror, any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I cannot find out anywhere where Christopher Lee is buried. Does anyone know?

I'm English on my father's side and Romanian on my mother's side. I've visited my relatives in England as well as those who still live in Bucharest. I truly cannot understand the fascination with this tale (or myriad horror films it has inspired over the decades). I used to think that the chief reasons behind the popularity of this tale is because we are all afraid of death, and, that we all want to live forever. The real blood-suckers are those career politicians who are drawing the life out of my two beloved lands : America and England.

So as one of the BRIDES OF DRACULA Eileen again plays a vampire babe.

Dracula had two central heroes: Professor Van Helsing and Mina Harker-everything else is just revisionist history in the worst sense of that term-making s**t up.