Both Frankenstein and Jekyll & Hyde are cautionary tales: beware the fruits of science, for you may get more than you bargained for! And, of course, the steps of the scientific investigations that brought about the feats of Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll must be destroyed and never reproduced again.

This cautionary-tale theme has been reproduced countless times before and hence, going back to and even further than Faust and his infamous deal with the devil. Of course, this scenario is viable only if scientific investigation and its results are seen as a black box, whose inner workings no-one can understand. What history has shown again and again, is that this view of science is highly inaccurate: more knowledge has consistently brought more and more benefits to humanity. What's unfortunate, is that this be-cautious-of-science theme is still present to a considerable degree in modern culture.

Both works have nuggets of truth that have not aged. Frankenstein lays bare the inborn human prejudice of the other, the unknown. Jekyll & Hyde deals with the struggle between primitive human desires and the notions of social propriety. Unfortunately, neither offers a satisfactory resolution to these struggles, if any.

Dracula, I believe, is a novel qualitatively different from the other two. It is very much a fast paced thriller, without much dwelling on the nature of the human condition. Although, to be fair, there is a bit of musing on the nature of human sanity. On the other hand, the overall feel of Dracula is much more positive than the other two. In my view, it does a good job of pitting superstition versus science, with the latter winning in the end, as it should. Moreover, although I'm not well versed in relevant history, I think it was fairly progressive at the time with respect to the role of women in society. IMHO, Mina Harker is an early prototype of Lara Croft. ( )

Frankenstein I was not so fond of. Too whiny. That is a very brief evaluation of a novel which deserves more, but I don't feel like going into details over it. I didn't like it.

Dracula, on the other hand, I loved. Exciting, though one did get tired of how stupid everybody was in fighting the vampires. Still. The evil was very evil and was soundly defeated in the end. No other vampires measure up to these in my opinion.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde I liked for all its introspective thoughts. Nothing I've seen of any of the reproduction stories are as good as this original. ( )