> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://thebeemagazine.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Working Class Library Episode 10: Dracula by Bram Stoker - URL: https://thebeemagazine.com/the-working-class-library-episode-10-dracula-by-bram-stoker/ - Published: 2026-10-28T19:53:01.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-28T19:53:01.000Z - Description: In this special spooky Halloween episode of the Working Class Library, Adelle Stripe joins hosts Claire Malcolm and Richard Benson to argue about whether Bram Stoker’s classic vampire novel Dracula is actually all about… class. - Author: Adelle Stripe - Tags: Podcast [*Dracula*](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9781780332413?ref=thebeemagazine.com) has been interpreted in many different ways since it was published in 1897, and these days it’s sexual undertones that attract attention. However, as Richard argues, in the 18th and 19th centuries, writers and artists saw capitalism as a vampire sucking the blood of the working classes – and in the novel, it’s the peasants and workers who first understand the count’s true nature. Could thoughts of social class have been far from readers’ minds in the 1890s? “Yes they could!” reply Adelle and Claire, who believe the book has next to nothing to do with class or politics. To be fair, Adelle has some authority here, as she played the lead role in her school’s production of a *Dracula* musical when she was nine, and sings a song on the podcast to prove it. (Yes, *Dracula* does seem an odd choice for a junior school play, but this was Tadcaster, where they do things differently.) The episode was recorded at the Lit Fest in Whitby, where Stoker set much of the novel. In it, Adelle, the hosts and the audience debate the book’s meaning, its cast of eccentrics and monsters, and its place in Whitby history. In the end, after the bloody struggle ends with dawn peeping over the tombstones, the time comes to decide whether or not it deserves a place in the Working Class Library. Who will prevail? Tune in to find out. If you have any thoughts or comments on the episode, please share them with us on our social media channels. ### Books and authors mentioned [*Beowulf*](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16328/16328-h/16328-h.htm?ref=thebeemagazine.com) Isabella Bird – [*The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither*](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9789361424427?ref=thebeemagazine.com) Terry Eagleton – [“Allergic to Depths”](https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v21/n06/terry-eagleton/allergic-to-depths?ref=thebeemagazine.com) (*London Review of Books*, 18 March 1999) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – [*Faust*](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9780300189698?ref=thebeemagazine.com) Charles Maturin – [*Melmoth the Wanderer*](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9781513282824?ref=thebeemagazine.com) Stephenie Meyer – the [*Twilight*](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9781904233657?ref=thebeemagazine.com) series John William Polidori – [*The Vampyre*](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9781513277707?ref=thebeemagazine.com) Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu – [*Carmilla*](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9789377502201?ref=thebeemagazine.com) Bram Stoker – [*The Snake’s Pass*](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9789371814263?ref=thebeemagazine.com), [*The Watter’s Mou’*](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9788728020500?ref=thebeemagazine.com), [*The Shoulder of Shasta*](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9788728020531?ref=thebeemagazine.com), [*The Lair of the White Worm*](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9789356567351?ref=thebeemagazine.com) Adelle Stripe – [*Base Notes: The Scents of a Life*](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9781399608602?ref=thebeemagazine.com), [*Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile*](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9780349020105?ref=thebeemagazine.com), [*Ten Thousand Apologies: Fat White Family and the Miracle of Failure*](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9781474617857?ref=thebeemagazine.com) William Wilkinson – [*An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, with Transylvania*](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/4064066434571?ref=thebeemagazine.com) W. B. Yeats – [*Collected Poems*](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9781909621640?ref=thebeemagazine.com) --- [Tip the Bee](https://thebeemagazine.com/#/portal/support) All donations go towards supporting the Bee’s mission to nurture, publish promote and pay for the best new working-class writing.