Dracula: Collector's Special Edition (Deluxe Illustrated Classics)
Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design 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 afterwards, 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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Community Reviews
4.5/5 stars
I read this by subscribing to the Dracula Daily substack, which means that I got real time chronologically emails with the content corresponding to each day. I read this book all the way from May to today, November 7th. It was a great experience, I loved every bit of it. I think that with how many times the original story has been told what made it scary to the original intended audience does not hit the same to someone from the 21st century that is aware of Dracula. By adding the chronological aspect to it I felt more connected to the characters and worried for their well being so every plot point got to me.
One of the best things about reading this was realizing that all the modern versions of this book don't really do justice to its characters. I thought I knew what the story was all about so I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. We need a live action adaptation of this book that honors the source material! Having said that I won't round this up to 5 because of Stoker's insistence in writing down dialogue with accents that made my C1 English cry trying to descipher what the hell they were saying. That and Van Helsing's gigantic long winded paragraphs. Everything else slapped!
I read this by subscribing to the Dracula Daily substack, which means that I got real time chronologically emails with the content corresponding to each day. I read this book all the way from May to today, November 7th. It was a great experience, I loved every bit of it. I think that with how many times the original story has been told what made it scary to the original intended audience does not hit the same to someone from the 21st century that is aware of Dracula. By adding the chronological aspect to it I felt more connected to the characters and worried for their well being so every plot point got to me.
One of the best things about reading this was realizing that all the modern versions of this book don't really do justice to its characters. I thought I knew what the story was all about so I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. We need a live action adaptation of this book that honors the source material! Having said that I won't round this up to 5 because of Stoker's insistence in writing down dialogue with accents that made my C1 English cry trying to descipher what the hell they were saying. That and Van Helsing's gigantic long winded paragraphs. Everything else slapped!
3.5
The gothic atmosphere is perfect and itâs a great especially for fall but it could probably be like 150 pages shorter.
After Johnathan leaves Transylvania it gets a bit boring then picks back up. I definitely found myself skimming through some of the letters.
The gothic atmosphere is perfect and itâs a great especially for fall but it could probably be like 150 pages shorter.
After Johnathan leaves Transylvania it gets a bit boring then picks back up. I definitely found myself skimming through some of the letters.
I read this via Dracula Daily. I highly recommend it! Dracula is an epistolary novel where everything has a date, and Dracula Daily is an email subscription that sends you the entries on the date they happen. So, the story is spread out across the months that it takes place and you get to experience it in chronological order. What I didn't expect was that Dracula is actually quite funny, I wonder if it at the time it was like the horror comedy movies we have today. I think part of the humor came from my modern sensibilities clashing with the language of the past, but I also think there were many aspects purposefully meant to be humorous when they were written. As with many older works, there are some dated aspects, like the use of slurs and other stereotypes/sexist views. I also found the "sailor speak" portions where the writing is written phonetically to convey a lower-class accent a bit difficult to read and translate. Other than that though, I had a blast following along with this story, and I'm a little sad it's over for the year.
Anne Rice is the one that got me into vampires years ago and I’ve only ever watched the movie Dracula. To listen to it was a wonderful experience! Bram Stoker was truly before his time and you could feel the horrors of it all. Had to get used to no chapters just journal entries but not a big deal. So glad I read it. 🥰
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