Dracula

The opening sections of Bram Stoker's Dracula are a masterclass in scene-setting, atmosphere and mood, as Jonathan Harker leaves the familiarity and comforts of the West into the unknown of rural Romania.

The epistolary style allows us to jump between characters' points of view, with the middle section taking place in Whitby and the Yorkshire coast. Here is where I appreciated Stoker's weaving in of folklore, such as the great dog that heralds the Demeter and bounds up the beach evoking the legend of the Barghest.

The final third I found to be a bit drawn out; lots of characters talking about what they're going to do but not actually doing it.

The conflict between the rational and the superstitious is ever-present; the hard-boiled science exemplified by the administering of blood transfusions (a very recent medical advancement when Dracula was written) and the esoteric knowledge displayed by Van Helsing required to defeat Dracula himself. Where these two things meet can be distilled when Jonathan Harker crosses from the West into the lands beyond most Westerners' knowledge; lands of superstition and strange customs.

Stoker also puts in much of both the maternal, supportive qualities of women as well as seductiveness. Jonathan Harker is lured in by the siren-like Vampiresses in Dracula's castle, while Mina Harker is depicted as being the supportive one to the ill-fated Lucy Westenra's prospective groom:

"No-one but a woman can help a man when he is in trouble of the heart"

Atmospheric in a way only Gothic literature can be.