Dracula (Penguin Classics)
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Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.8
EAN: 9780141439846
ISBN: 014143984X
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 560
Publication Date: 2003-04-29
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Release Date: 2003-04-29
Studio: Penguin Classics
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Editorial Reviews:
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When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes a series of horrific discoveries about his client. Soon after wards, various bizarre incidents unfold in England: an apparently unmanned ship is wrecked off the coast of Whitby; a young woman discovers strange puncture marks on her neck; and the inmate of a lunatic asylum raves about the 'Master' and his imminent arrival. In "Dracula", Bram Stoker created one of the great masterpieces of the horror genre, brilliantly evoking a nightmare world of vampires and vampire hunters and also illuminating the dark corners of Victorian sexuality and desire.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Mother of All Vampire Stories
Comment: Confession time: I read the entire "Twilight" Saga before reading "Dracula." I know, I know especially embarrassing considering I majored in 19th Century British Lit in college. However, this glaring deficiency in my literary repertoire has been remedied and I can now emerge from my cloud of shame. I really did enjoy this book and since everyone else in the world has likely already read it, I do not feel it necessary to go into all of the plot details. Here is the short version without spoilers: when Count Dracula decides to expand operations to London after centuries of being relegated to Transylvania, it becomes problematic for British mortals. Luckily there is a group of people, captained by Professor Van Helsing, who make it an objective to eradicate the vampires from society.
I found "Dracula" a surprisingly quick read for a 400 page book and can understand how it made a splash in Victorian England. However, there are a number of grammatical errors and typos in the text that did hinder my reading process somewhat and were rather distracting. Further, the outpouring of emotion, especially from men, struck me as rather odd for the time period - I just cannot imagine Queen Victoria enjoying that much crying. Though a traumatizing adventure (I would surely be shaking in my boots after butting heads with Count Dracula), some scenes seemed a little affected to me. Still, I do have great respect for this novel in its departure from the more typical works of its day and for bringing vampire myths together into a medium that would serve as a springboard for similar works in the future. "Twilight" may have had a more appealing family of vampires, but I am glad to have this canonical vampire story on my bookshelf.
Customer Rating:
Summary: No one can surpass Stoker!!!! This is the only Dracula!!
Comment: The fact that Bram Stoker's "Dracula" was published in 1897, and it still holds its own in today's Hollywood style, glitz, glam, and sanguinity is utterly amazing. You will find that this is the most original piece of literary work ever published.
In the past, others have tried to copy his eclectic style, but in the end they've always miserably failed. Why is this you may ask?
Well, because most other authors never really explore their characters psyche, which was something Stoker mastered, especially in this book. In Stoker's story the narrative arrangements are a series of journals, letters, and diaries written by his characters.
Stoker allows you to witness the story unfolding through their eyes. This method allows the story to move rapidly.
In chronicling the story in this fashion the reader will envision, and feel as though he or she is apart of the story.
It is interesting to note that even though the Dracula character is the antagonist he is relegated into a background character, and even if this concept escapes some people. You'll have to admit this method works extremely well in this tale of the macabre.
Van Helsing, Dr Seward, and Mina Murray Harker are all characters everyone is familiar with and there are dozens of movie that tried to recreate the milieu of Stokers story, but you'll never find a better version than the original.
The plot everyone knows so I don't see the point in rehashing it here. Besides the best thing is to order your copy today because you'll be in for a real treat.
4 stars.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Accessible and atmospheric, although the narrative style has its weaknesses. A fundamental vampire novel, and highly recommende
Comment: When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to arrange for an English home purchase for Count Dracula, he becomes a prisoner in Dracula's castle and discovers horrific and unnatural facts about Dracula himself. Not long after, strange events occur in England--a unmanned ship beaches on shore, a madman awaits his master, and a young woman with unexplained puncture wounds on her neck becomes pale and ill. These events bring together a diverse cast of characters who tell the story through their diaries and letters and work to understand and to defeat Dracula. The diary-style narrative, although contrived and somewhat frustrating, makes the book accessible and swift flowing, and the book is of course a rich, classic horror text and a foundational vampire novel. Recommended to all readers, including those that don't generally read classics.
A horror classic, Dracula is both an atmospheric, foundational vampire novel and an accessible, swiftly flowing text. The narrative is composed of a number of chronologically arranged diary entries and sundry letters and clippings that follows a cast of approximately seven characters through one united plot. The diary-style narrative means that the book is composed largely of many short entires within average-length chapters, and these short entries make the book accessible to all readers and make it flow swiftly. As such, this is a good book for readers that don't often read classics (and the footnotes answer any question in period locations and phrases). The letters and diary entires are also personal, honest, and detailed, building realistic characters and meaningful emotions. However, the narrative style has two weaknesses: it's contrived, although there are sections that describe how and why the entires were chronologically arranged, and more importantly it puts the reader in the position of knowing much more than the characters, especially in the first half of the book. This dramatic irony becomes quite exaggerated as the reader, overlooking the entire story, can clearly see the danger, while the characters still bumble about in the dark, constricted to their own points of view--and the more exaggerated the dramatic irony, the more obvious and more frustrating it becomes. On the whole, however, the diary narrative is an effective storytelling style.
And the story itself is exceptional. Stoker intertwines the horror of the unholy undead with the draw of power, sensuality, and beautiful young women. He engages both in equal measure: his vampires are at once grotesque and amazing, from Dracula's pale face, garish red lips, and inhuman animalistic tendencies to the seductive and rawly sexuality beauty of his brides and the growing sensuality of the human women that he seduces and transforms. (Furthermore, the mythology that surrounds the vampires, from garlic to daylight, will be immediately recognizable to modern readers.) Alongside these inhuman forces is a cast of realistically conceived and motivated humans, originally brought together through love and friendship, ultimately united due to Dracula and in order to destroy him. Through the diary entires, the story moves at an equal pace through emotions and plot, the Victorian descriptions are rich and detailed, the horror elements are atmospheric and intense. This is truly a fundamental vampire novel.
I'm glad that I finally got around to reading Dracula, and I was very pleased with the text. It is lengthy, sometimes predictable, sometimes (although primarily because of the narration) frustrating, but on the whole it is also a compulsively readable, detailed, atmospheric, and core horror text. I recommend it to a diverse audience: horror/fantasy/vampire fans, classics fans, and also readers that don't often read classics, who I believe will find the writing style approachable and easy to understand. The Penguin Classics edition includes supplementary material, including footnotes that help clear up confusion, and an introduction and appendixes that provide more information for the curious reader. Very high recommended.
Customer Rating:
Summary: "For the dead travel fast"
Comment: Surprisingly "Denn die Toten reiten schnell" or "For the dead travel fast" is more than an opening line to this tale of love in the dangerous moon light. After watching several Drac movies and a few Nosferatu's, I pretty much though I had a handle on the genera. Little did I know what a wonderful world of mystery and suspense that Bram Stoker opened up for me.
The story is told mostly third party though the papers, diaries, and phonograph recordings (on wax calendars) of those people involve in a tale so bizarre that it almost defies belief. The general story line is that of a Count that plans to move to a more urban setting (from Borgo Pass to London) where there is a richer diet. There he finds succulent women; something he can sing his teeth in. Unfortunately for him a gang of ruffians (including a real-estate agent, asylum director, Texas cowboy and an Old Dutch abnormal psychologist) is out to detour his nocturnal munching. They think they have Drac on the run but with a wing and a prayer he is always one step ahead.
Of more value to the reader is the rich prose chosen by Stoker as he describes the morals and technology of the time. We have to come to grips with or decide if we can perform the rituals that are required to eliminate vampires verses the impropriety of opening graves and staking loved ones. The powers in the book differ from the movie versions in that they are more of persuasion and capabilities to manipulate the local weather. At one point the Dutch Dr. Van Helsing, is so overwhelmed by a beautiful vampire laying in the grave that he almost for gets why he is there and may become vamp chow.
All in all the story is more in the cunning chase. And the question as to will they succeed or will Dracula triumph. Remember "For the dead travel fast."
Dracula
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Original Classic
Comment: After getting into some The Undead and Philosophy: Chicken Soup for the Soulless (Popular Culture and Philosophy), I decided that I had been greatly remiss in not reading Bram Stoker's classic "Dracula".
Surprisingly, this was only one of many novels written by Stoker, though by far the most popular. It has not once been out of print since it was published. Not a bad achievement, really.
The book is written through documents, and covers a large range of changing viewpoints. Those documents include journals of the main characters, (such as Jonathan Harker), letters, telegrams, newspaper reports, and so on. I thought it strange, but this style of writing works exceptionally well and is a mark of Stoker's ability. It gives a greater air of authenticity to the plot, which is creepy enough, in itself.
The basic plot is a creepy tale of Count Dracula who decides to move to England and start a new "life" there. Buying up properties, Jonathan Harker has to travel to the Count with the papers. What follows is a series of strange and mysterious events that leave people puzzled and wondering. Dracula is hatching his own vile plans for the land of England.
The narrative flows along very well, and keeps the right level of tension. In some places, things just get freaky, but it all adds up to a very eerie and tense tale. This is among the best books of the type I have read.
Set in later Victorian England, the heavy duty sexuality that exudes from the book was something of a surprise. Never crossing the line into crass obscenity, Stoker weaves a sexuality throughout the vampire encounters that is almost palpable and would have been shocking in his day. One can see where the inspiration for Lestat and more modern vampires comes from, (if one had missed the obvious, that is!).
There was one thing that made the book a little tough to get through in places: the dated and very 19th century English. Of course, to change it into a more modern dialect would be verging on sacrilege, but a potential reader would need to be aware of it. Some parts I found a little tough and I had to really think about the meaning. However, in some ways, this added to the charm of the book as the language is actually quite nice for the most part.
"Dracula" is truly a classic, and definitely comes with this reviewer's unreserved recommendation. It is simply a great read and it is a pivotal book for all the immitations that it spawned.
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