Prowling in London: Canines in Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Abstract

Abstract:Dracula first appears in front of the British public in England not as a gentleman but in the form of “an immense dog.” This article reads Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) in the context of human-animal encounters happening on the streets of London when the fear of rabid dogs swept the city. Victorian urban projects aimed at building an urban structure securing human control over animals. Yet this vision was disrupted by the ubiquitous presence of stray dogs in London and their alleged infection with rabies. Dracula’s and Un-Dead Lucy’s prowling in London emblematize this threat of urban stray dogs. The novel’s narratives also prowl, emulating animal intelligence in the way they rely on instant perception lacking reflection and leading to a hunt. This temporal immediacy and chasing mobility of prowling narratives envision co-evolutionary intelligence, dissolving the human-animal binary which structured the domestication, or the anthropocentric urbanization, of the city.