It is exactly a century this year since Bram Stoker's Dracula (Penguin, Pounds 1 in UK) first emerged from his clay-filled coffin to terrorise readers.corners of the world. Ironically, however, he has been known mainly not as a literary character, but as a celluloid and comic-book ghoul. The novel which gave birth to the iconoclastic figure of the count is, to a great extent, still as critically underestimated as it was on its publication in Victorian England. Fortunately, this centenary year will allow people to get re-acquainted with Dracula and hopefully lead them to the pages of this Gothic masterpiece.