England’s industrial revolution brought with it expansive colonization in countries like India and Africa, where England sought to conduct extensive trade. England established its colonies along with a network of trade routes, so that products could be shipped to and from England’s shores. With new innovations in nautical technology, such as steamships, England’s 19th century colonization efforts worked in full force. This kind of volume of economic activity also brought with it a significant volume of fears and doubts regarding this new and connected world. Evidence of this fear of colonization is can be found in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
As products flowed through England’s ports, so did people of different nations and of different races. This clearly created much unrest amongst the British population, as elements of other cultures began to mingle traditional British culture. On page 60 in Dracula Johnathan Harker states “this was the being I was helping to transfer to London, where, perhaps for centuries to come he might, amongst its teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood, and create a new and ever-widening circle of semi-demons.” Based this quote by Harker, the point can be made that Dracula is viewed as more of an invader than an immigrant. The cultural practices and traditions he may bring to England as an immigrant, disregarding the fact that he is a blood thirsty vampire, posed a threat to traditional English culture in the eyes of many British citizens.
The creation of Dracula as a foreign character with intentions of purchasing property in England played directly into the fears of the Victorian era population, thus making the novel incredibly popular, as it provided exactly what its genre suggested, horror.
Source:
https://www.britannica.com/place/British-Empire