It is said of Mrs. Radcliffe that, when writing her now almost forgotten romances, she shut herself up in absolute seclusion, and fed upon raw beef, in order to give her work the desired atmosphere of gloom, tragedy and terror. If one had no assurance to the contrary, one might well suppose that a similar method and regimen had been adopted by Mr. Bram Stoker while writing his new novel Dracula.
The Daily Mail, 1 June 1897[108]
Upon publication, Dracula was well received. Reviewers frequently compared the novel to other Gothic writers, and mentions of novelist Wilkie Collins and The Woman in White (1859) were especially common because of similarities in structure and style.[109][m] A review appearing in The Bookseller notes that the novel could almost have been written by Collins,[111] and an anonymous review in Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art wrote that Dracula improved upon the style of Gothic pioneer Ann Radcliffe.[112] Another anonymous writer described Stoker as "the Edgar Allan Poe of the nineties".[113] Other favourable comparisons to other Gothic novelists include the Brontë sisters and Mary Shelley.[114][49]
Many of these early reviews were charmed by Stoker's unique treatment of the vampire myth. One called it the best vampire story ever written. The Daily Telegraph's reviewer noted that while earlier Gothic works, like The Castle of Otranto, had kept the supernatural far away from the novelists' home countries, Dracula's horrors occurred both in foreign lands—in the far-away Carpathian Mountains—and at home, in Whitby and Hampstead Heath.[115] An Australian paper, The Advertiser, regarded the novel as simultaneously sensational and domestic.[116] One reviewer praised the "considerable power" of Stoker's prose and describing it as impressionistic. They were less fond of the parts set in England, finding the vampire suited better to tales set far away from home.[117] The British magazine Vanity Fair noted that the novel was, at times, unintentionally funny, pointing to Dracula's disdain for garlic.[118]
Dracula was widely considered to be frightening. A review appearing in The Manchester Guardian in 1897 praised its capacity to entertain, but concluded that Stoker erred in including so much horror.[119] Likewise, Vanity Fair opined that the novel was "praiseworthy" and absorbing, but could not recommend it to those who were not "strong".[118] Stoker's prose was commended as effective in sustaining the novel's horror by many publications.[120] A reviewer for the San Francisco Wave called the novel a "literary failure"; they elaborated that coupling vampires with frightening imagery, such as insane asylums and "unnatural appetites", made the horror too overt, and that other works in the genre, such as The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, had more restraint.[121]
Modern critics frequently write that Dracula had a mixed critical reception upon publication.[122] Carol Margaret Davison, for example, notes an "uneven" response from critics contemporary to Stoker.[49] John Edgar Browning, a scholar whose research focuses on Dracula and literary vampires, conducted a review of the novel's early criticism in 2012 and determined that Dracula had been "a critically acclaimed novel".[123] Browning writes that the misconception of Dracula's mixed reception stems from a low sample size.[124] Of 91 contemporary reviews, Browning identified 10 as "generally positive"; 4 as "mixed" in their assessment; 3 as "wholly or mostly negative"; and the rest as positive and possessing no negative reservations. Among the positive reviews, Browning writes that 36 were unreserved in their praise, including publications like The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, and Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper.[125] Other critical works have rejected the narrative of Dracula's mixed response. Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu's In Search of Dracula mentions the novel's "immediate success".[126][n] Other works about Dracula, coincidentally also published in 1972, concur; Gabriel Ronay says the novel was "recognised by fans and critics alike as a horror writer's stroke of genius",[127] and Anthony Masters mentions the novel's "enormous popular appeal".[128] Since the 1970s, Dracula has been the subject of significant academic interest, evidenced by its own peer-reviewed journal and the numerous books and articles discussing the novel.[24]
