Dracula begins with the journal of Jonathan Harker, a young solicitor on the way to Transylvania to give information to the mysterious Count Dracula about his new estate in London. Dracula takes the young man prisoner, and Jonathan sees many strange and evil things in the castle before escaping and fleeing into the night. He later decides that he must have been mad.

Meanwhile, back in England, Jonathan's fiancée, Mina, is visiting her friend Lucy. Lucy has just decided to marry the Honorable Arthur Holmwood, having had to choose between him and his two friends Dr. John Seward and Quincey Morris, the Texan. Dracula, who is moving to London to feast on more humans, happens to land in the part of England where Mina and Lucy are staying. His first victim is Lucy.

Dr. Seward, who, by coincidence, runs the insane asylum next door to Dracula's primary London home, tries to treat Lucy's 'illness.' He calls in from Amsterdam his friend and mentor Professor Abraham Van Helsing. Van Helsing figures out what is wrong with Lucy, but cannot save her. By this time, Jonathan has made it home to England and is happily married to Mina.

Van Helsing brings together Mina, Jonathan, Arthur, Quincey, Seward and himself and convinces everyone of the reality of vampires and the danger of this particular one, who was in his human life a great warrior and thinker. They have already destroyed the undead Lucy, and they likewise set out to destroy Dracula.

They educate themselves in the strengths and weaknesses of the vampire, and learn through careful and clever research what Dracula's plans are. Dracula has many lairs throughout London; they decide to sterilize them all to strand Dracula in his weakest form and then to kill him in the name of God. The Count, however, has other plans, and as the men search his houses he attacks Mina in the night, feeding her with his blood so that she will become a vampire, too.

The men find out about Dracula's activities and step up their efforts. They manage to drive him out of England, but realize that if they fail to finish the job then Mina will become a vampire anyway. They follow his trail to Transylvania, where he and his faithful gypsies manage to keep outwitting them. Finally, minutes before he reaches his castle, the entire team descends upon him while he is being transported in his box of Transylvanian earth. Jonathan and Quincey kill him, though not before Quincey himself is mortally wounded. With Mina free from her fate, the rest return to England and remain lifelong friends.