Dracula

Character Guide

Spoiler-free — fuller detail (with spoilers, if you want them) lives in the reader's Guide tab.

Jonathan Harker

A young English solicitor sent to Transylvania to finalize Count Dracula's London property purchase; he becomes a prisoner in the Count's castle.

Mina Murray (Madam Mina)

Jonathan's fiancée (later wife), an intelligent schoolteacher who corresponds with her friend Lucy and later helps compile the assembled documents of the case.

Lucy Westenra

Mina's beautiful, beloved friend who receives three marriage proposals and begins suffering from a mysterious wasting illness and sleepwalking.

Dr. John Seward

A young doctor who runs a lunatic asylum near Carfax, one of Lucy's suitors, and keeper of a phonograph diary; he has an intriguing patient named Renfield.

Abraham Van Helsing

Seward's old Dutch mentor, a doctor and scholar with wide knowledge of obscure diseases and folklore, summoned to help diagnose Lucy.

Arthur Holmwood (Lord Godalming)

A wealthy young nobleman engaged to Lucy Westenra, deeply devoted to her welfare.

Quincey P. Morris

An adventurous, plain-spoken Texan and friend of Arthur's, also one of Lucy's suitors.

Count Dracula

An ancient, aristocratic Transylvanian nobleman with strange powers and habits, whose castle Jonathan visits and who plans to relocate to London.

R.M. Renfield

A disturbing patient in Dr. Seward's asylum who obsessively consumes small living creatures and shows an unsettling fixation on his unseen 'Master.'

Mrs. Westenra

Lucy's mother, in poor health, who stays with her daughter during her mysterious illness.

Glossary

Un-Dead

The novel's term for vampires — beings who have died but continue a supernatural, blood-feeding existence.

Zoöphagous

Life-eating; used to describe Renfield's obsession with consuming living creatures to absorb their life force.

Kodak

A period brand-name reference to portable cameras, used to represent modern documentary technology in the novel.

Szekely

An ethnic Hungarian-speaking people of Transylvania whom Dracula claims as his warrior ancestors.

Voivode

A historical Eastern European title meaning warlord or military governor, used to describe Dracula's supposed historical identity.

Scholomance

A legendary school in the mountains, said in the novel's folklore to teach dark secrets, with the devil claiming a tenth scholar.

Octroi

A historical tax or toll levied on goods entering a city, mentioned as a possible obstacle to smuggling Dracula's boxes.

Bowie knife

A large fixed-blade hunting/fighting knife, carried by Quincey Morris as his signature weapon.

Kukri

A curved Nepalese/Gurkha knife, used by Jonathan Harker as a weapon in the climax.

Phonograph diary

An early sound-recording device Dr. Seward uses to dictate his journal entries instead of writing them.

Wafer (the Host)

Consecrated communion bread used by Van Helsing as a sacred, protective weapon against vampires.

Calèche

A light, horse-drawn carriage, used to transport Harker to Dracula's castle.

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