Books like The Essential Dracula

There is something about Dracula. It's not solely the fact that the book was genre breaking in a way that the vampire tales before it were not. Perhaps it is the characters, so multi-layered and, so many of them, so questionable. Is Van Helsing the great, good guy as he makes himself out to be? What really is the relationship between Lucy and her mother? Why do Harker and the Count mirror each other? What extactly is it with those wives? Everytime you read the book, there is something new.For me, however, it is Stoker's choice of words. Every word seems to have been chosen with care. Take, for instance, where Mina reports of Dracula's attack on her. She reports that Dracula told her she would be avenged on the man. It is a wonderful choice. Revenge would be the wrong word. But avenge? Especially, after the men left her out of the hunt? Oh, yes. In that one word, Stoker shows the reader how cunning a devil Dracula is.