Bram Stoker, 1897

Dracula

Bram Stoker's tale of a Transylvanian count loose in modern England, read closely and charted from its own words.

161,057 words in 27 chapters, about 11 h 17 min of reading.

Read it free at Project GutenbergHow we drew the plates

Dracula in six sentences

In our own words, after reading the whole novel, and checked against the text. Spoiler-light: no ending is revealed.

  1. Dracula is a story about the fear of invasion, in which an ancient predator reaches into late-Victorian England and a small circle of friends must find a way to stop him.

  2. Stoker tells it entirely through documents, including journals, letters, newspaper cuttings and a diary spoken into a phonograph, so readers piece the danger together just as the characters do.

  3. The central tension pits old superstition against new science, as a lawyer, a doctor and a professor discover that their modern tools are not enough on their own.

  4. Running underneath is an anxiety about bodies, blood and desire, and about how the men in the book protect, judge and admire the women around them.

  5. Our counts show the Count gaining power through absence, with nearly half of his 211 name mentions in the first 15 percent of the book and only five across the next two-fifths.

  6. Reviews in 1897 were mixed, yet the novel went on to define the modern vampire, and its mix of horror, technology and teamwork still feels surprisingly current.

Three plates from the text

Every plate is computed by our scripts from the 161,057-word Project Gutenberg text. None is copied from a study guide.

Plate IThe mood of the wordingAbove the dotted line: brighter
Emotional arc of DraculaSmoothed sentiment of the wording across 40 equal parts of Dracula, from the opening to the ending. Labelled points: Ch 5: Lucy's letters about three proposals; Ch 7: ghost ship reaches Whitby; Ch 11–12: crisis at Lucy's bedside; Ch 21: horror inside the asylum.Ch 5Ch 7Ch 11–12Ch 21OpeningMiddleEndingEmotional arc of DraculaSmoothed sentiment of the wording across 40 equal parts of Dracula, from the opening to the ending. Labelled points: Ch 5: Lucy's letters about three proposals; Ch 7: ghost ship reaches Whitby; Ch 11–12: crisis at Lucy's bedside; Ch 21: horror inside the asylum.Brighter wordingCh 5Ch 7Ch 11–12Ch 21OpeningMiddleEndingEmotional arc of DraculaSmoothed sentiment of the wording across 40 equal parts of Dracula, from the opening to the ending. Labelled points: Ch 5: Lucy's letters about three proposals; Ch 7: ghost ship reaches Whitby; Ch 11–12: crisis at Lucy's bedside; Ch 21: horror inside the asylum.Brighter wordingCh 5Ch 7Ch 11–12Ch 21OpeningMiddleEndingEmotional arc of DraculaSmoothed sentiment of the wording across 40 equal parts of Dracula, from the opening to the ending. Labelled points: Ch 5: Lucy's letters about three proposals; Ch 7: ghost ship reaches Whitby; Ch 11–12: crisis at Lucy's bedside; Ch 21: horror inside the asylum.Brighter wordingCh 5Ch 7Ch 11–12Ch 21OpeningMiddleEnding
  1. Ch 5Lucy's letters about three proposals
  2. Ch 7Ghost ship reaches Whitby
  3. Ch 11–12Crisis at Lucy's bedside
  4. Ch 21Horror inside the asylum

We split the novel into 40 equal slices of about 4,000 words and score each by the average VADER sentiment of its sentences, from −1 (most negative) to +1 (most positive); the line is a five-slice moving average, and the dotted line is neutral. Only 6 of its 40 slices fall below zero, and none by much, despite the dark subject. It measures the tone of the words, not what happens.

Source: our count from the Project Gutenberg text (161,057 words), scored with VADER.

Plate IIWho is named whenNames per twentieth of the book

This chart counts how often five central characters are named in each twentieth of the book, about 8,100 words, including nicknames and titles such as the Count for Dracula and Madam Mina for Mina Harker. Pronouns are not counted, and many entries are written as I, so diarists are undercounted.

Source: our count from the Gutenberg text, in 20 slices of about 8,100 words.

Plate IIIWho shares a paragraphLine width: paragraphs together
Character network of DraculaEight most-named characters. Strongest links: Arthur and Van Helsing (87 paragraphs); Quincey and Van Helsing (63 paragraphs); Arthur and Quincey (62 paragraphs); Lucy and Van Helsing (61 paragraphs).Van HelsingLucyMinaArthurJonathanDraculaSewardQuinceyCharacter network of DraculaEight most-named characters. Strongest links: Arthur and Van Helsing (87 paragraphs); Quincey and Van Helsing (63 paragraphs); Arthur and Quincey (62 paragraphs); Lucy and Van Helsing (61 paragraphs).Van HelsingLucyMinaArthurJonathanDraculaSewardQuincey

Lines join the eight most-named characters, and a thicker line means more paragraphs that name both of them; only the 15 strongest pairs are shown. Van Helsing is the hub who connects the whole band of hunters.

Source: our count of paragraph co-occurrence in the Gutenberg text.

Dramatis personae

The eight most-named characters we counted, with how often each is named in the text (names and titles, not pronouns).

  • Abraham Van Helsingnamed 478 timesDutch professor and doctor from Amsterdam who knows more than he first says.
  • Lucy Westenranamed 303 timesMina's lively friend, courted by three suitors.
  • Mina Harkernamed 299 timesJonathan's fiancée, an assistant schoolmistress with an orderly mind.
  • Arthur Holmwoodnamed 265 timesLucy's suitor and the heir to a title.
  • Jonathan Harkernamed 236 timesYoung English solicitor sent to Transylvania on business.
  • Count Draculanamed 211 timesAncient Transylvanian nobleman preparing a move to England.
  • Dr John Sewardnamed 193 timesYoung doctor who runs an asylum outside London.
  • Quincey Morrisnamed 134 timesGood-humored Texan and another of Lucy's suitors.

Key terms

Epistolary novel
A novel told through letters, diaries and other documents rather than one narrator's continuous account.
Gothic
Fiction of dread and the uncanny, often set among castles, tombs and other old places.
Shorthand
A fast writing system of symbols; Jonathan keeps his travel journal in it.
Phonograph
An early sound-recording machine; Dr Seward dictates his diary into one.
Boyar
A member of the old landed nobility of Eastern Europe, the rank the Count claims for his ancestors.

What we read to write this

  1. Dracula by Bram StokerProject Gutenberg
  2. Bram Stoker (1847-1912), by Jarlath KilleenTrinity College Dublin, Trinity Writers
  3. Bram Stoker's Dracula!University at Buffalo Libraries
  4. DraculaEncyclopaedia Britannica

Our own explanation and plates, written with AI assistance (Claude, by Anthropic) after reading the sources above and checked against the novel’s text. No text or images were copied. Published October 18, 2026.

Dracula is free to read.

It is public domain in the US. Project Gutenberg has the full text as a web page, an ebook and plain text.

Open the free text

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