Dracula Paperback – November 20, 2014

The Oxford World's Classics DRACULA edited by Roger Luckhurst has the best introduction and the best notes to DRACULA I've ever seen. It outclasses THE ESSENTIAL DRACULA, whose notes push the reader around one way or another. It explains more and it also, wisely, keeps quiet more, letting the book weave its own spell.The introduction shows how DRACULA is a wonderful mix of almost every kind of evil the Victorian English could think of. The vampire has evil features from anti-Catholic prejudice, from anti-Semitic prejudice, from prejudice against Islam, Middle Europe, the unscientific past -- about the only un-English thing that gets a good word is garlic. As the introducer points out, Dracula is in part based on the "real" Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, but is also based on so many other evil rulers and monsters, real and fictional, that no single source for our monster can be cited or believed in.In other words, Stoker got together a lot of reference works and then made Dracula up, and what a stunning, wonderful job he did.The Luckhurst Oxford World Classics edition is available on Kindle for a small price that's well worth its wonderful notes and analysis. Amazon, in its curiously mysterious way, will not show you the book if you just type in DRACULA. You have to type in something like DRACULA OXFORD instead, and I very much suggest you do that. Doing without notes of one kind or another seems out of the question to me. There are passages in a messed-up seaside-town dialect Stoker made up from a reference book, and I contend NO ONE can read these passages without notes. Luckhurst also fits all the superstitions together, to the degree that Stoker lets him, and I think you need that kind of help too.As for Stoker's DRACULA itself, it came across to me in this reading better than it ever had before. I'd read it two or three times in the past, but I'd been overexposed to NOSFERATU and the Lugosi movie, so I misremembered the book, made it cruder in my recollection than it actually was. Two main points I had forgotten (I'm afraid deep DRACULA readers won't think much of me after these admissions -- and watch out, because some of them are mild S-P-O-I-L-E-R-S):1) Jonathan Harker, Dracula's helpless victim throughout the first fifth of the book, not only survives but gets a pat on the back for his manliness from the rest of the novel's many heroes. That was a relief, and unified the book for me. You can't keep a good man down.2) Renfield, the crazy guy who eats flies and spiders, is a good reasoner from a high social class (Luckhurst's annotations make this quite clear, and the way Renfield talks tells the reader the same thing). In movie versions, he's creepy and that's about it. In the novel, he's a philosopher, and some of the most important points about vampire philosophy in general come to us from him.Put these two things together, and the book comes out more intelligent than I remembered, and less pure senseless horror. As pure senseless horror it's just a bit silly. The intelligence and strength of Harker and Renfield save it from that silliness.Lots of people who don't like the book point out that the opening section, where Harker and Dracula face off against one another, is as horrifying as anybody who likes nineteenth century thrillers could possibly want ... but then the book seems to go soft suddenly, focusing on a shallow woman and seeming, for quite a while, like a dull romance novel.Luckhurst's notes, again, helped me get over this impression of slowdown. The nature of manliness and womanliness is tremendously important to Stoker's world-view. As Luckhurst points out, all the novel's manly men break down at one point or another, and are braced up by their need to care for weak, helpless women. All the clichés about masculinity and femininity are dragged out -- and all of them are subverted in the most interesting, and horrifying, possible way.Mina, for example, is a strong, capable woman. Furthermore, she's practically indispensable to the vampire-hunt. The tough doctor, Seward, keeps a diary on phonograph cylinders. He's totally up-to-date, but he forgets even to write a summary of what the cylinders are about, so he can't find anything he told his recorded diary! All he can do is paw helplessly through a drawer full of phonograph cylinders. Mina types them up for him, so that at last the good guys can start tracking Dracula down.But the good guys' decision to keep her out of the rest of their activities, and inform her of nothing as they start sharpening their stakes, makes her immediately fall into Dracula's clutches.In other words, if only they trusted women more, their women wouldn't get hurt so much.Stranger than Dracula himself. But the book has lots of this kind of strangeness. We find out what vampires are bit by bit and bite by bite, but when we're all done, strangely enough, we still don't know what we've really been dealing with: a middle-European monster, or our own monstrous views of how life should go.I never had more fun than with this DRACULA.

Would definitely purchase again

I don't know why Amazon has taken this off the listing. This is a very good edition of Dracula. Gorgeous binding, with red gilded pages. It's a beautiful book of a wonderful classic and I hope they realize they made a mistake in removing the listing soon. I bought mine on a few weeks ago and there were NO flaws!After having read the horrible Dracula The Undead by Dacre Stoker and my own mind and soul rebelling against the sparkling angsty fad that is Twilight I have decided to reacquaint myself with a true king of the night. I was not disappointed.This novel is an Epistolary novel. Epistolary style is an artful attempt at realism by making a novel consist entirely of detailed journal entries, letters and fake newspaper clippings. This was a popular style in Victorian England with authors like Robert Louis Stevenson and Bram Stoker. In general if I am reading Victorian literature I usually prefer a straight forward narrative like Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo or Oscar Wilde.People take for granted just how scary Dracula can be simply because our culture is over saturated with almost cartoonish caricatures of him. The poor guy can't even introduce himself with a Romanian accent without us wanting to giggle because of what we associate with him but let's forget the cliches and modern over-saturation for a bit and think of Dracula for who and what he is.Dracula is a pretty scary guy. He does what he likes and to Hell with the consequences. When he talks to Jonathan Harker it's civil but there's the under-current of menace. It's almost like listening to the double talk of a crime boss from The God Father. His wording seems cordial when he tells Harker that he wants him to stay for at least a month to improve his English (even though he already speaks nearly perfect English) but what he's really saying (and what Jonathan is detecting) is 'I'm not letting you leave here. I am going to make you lie to your loved ones about why and there's a very high chance I'm going to kill you.'Dracula has incredible powers and yet, apparently for the fun of it, he climbs along the walls of his castle, up and down, like a spider. Why does he do this? He does not have to do it. Dracula can turn into mist or a bat or a wolf but apparently it amuses himself to scale a wall with the ominous quality of lizard-like motions as if on an unconscious levels he wants to prove how NOT human he is.On his way to England Dracula kills the entire crew of the Demetre. He slaughters them one by one. He can walk about in day (though it leaves him weakened and limited in his powers). He does NOT sparkle. He can turn into a bat, a wolf, or a foul vapor. He can also conjure winds and terrible torrential storms. He's strong as at least ten men and can defy gravity. He has the senses of a wolf and he can move like an animal and can be just as savage. He can enthrall minds and make you forget what he wills you to forget. The films always make it seem like Dracula has a LOT of limitations but if you don't have some garlic, wolfsbane, or sacred object in immediate reach you are utterly helpless!I think reacquainting myself with Dracula was my own mind's way of rebelling against the Twilight fad to remind myself of when vampires were both dangerous, terrifying and sensual at the same time. You can be charming and suave and still pretty damn scary. Stephenie Meyers and a lot of modern writers seem to forget this.I can recall once watching a documentary on the History channel some years ago about the real Dracula castle (I believe it was Bran Castle) and what happened was the villagers complained of strange noises up at the castle so they sent some priests to bless the place (much like in the Hammer horror film Dracula has Risen from the Grave) but as they neared the castle a terrible storm hit and they had to do the blessing from over a thousand feet away. At that moment the door to my apartment creaked open and, though I had not realized I before, I knew, at that very moment, that Dracula was probably the most terrifying fictional monster in existence.Dracula is the only classic monster that can give me nightmares.So if you're into vampires and miss the good old days when they were both seductive AND scary or just feel burnt out from Twilight I strongly, strongly recommend this classic.

I bought this for the illustrations, which do not disappoint. Intricately detailed and lush.The story is an adaptation of Dracula which takes many liberties with the timeline and characters. It's also one of those that sees the story as one of doomed love, which is not my favorite interpretation. But it's done thoughtfully.

Review of the BARNES FLEXIBOUND EDITION. I wish more people would state which edition they were reviewing, since Amazon group them altogether!Bought as a gift and this edition is beautiful. I love the vibrant colour and the flexible cover.My only gripe was a few fine scuffs here and there due to Amazons poor packaging/postal handing. Not much to say...let my photos do the talking!

I'm not sure it's worth my reviewing the story in this book, since everyone is so familiar with it. But if you haven't actually read this original version then it is well worth doing so, if you can cope with the beautiful classic writing style.The main reason I wanted to do this review was to let you know just how nice this book is physically.The format is a Flexibound Edition by Barnes & Noble. It's basically a faux leather-bound cover. Obviously not real leather, it is a soft feel plastic or rubber which is marginally flexible in the hand.The first and last pages are backed in the old-world style using frantically patterned end papers.The page edges are colour sprayed to complement the cover.There is also a page marking ribbon.Even the relatively thick paper stock has slightly off white colouring and lends itself to the feel of an old original collectable.In short, for the incredibly low retail price of this book you get an absolutely stunning edition, which looks fantastic on the shelf in a collected set and feels great in the hand as you read. Barnes and Noble do a nice collection in this format. Just search for (Barnes Noble Flexibound editions) on Amazon.

I bought this because it is described as a Penguin Classics edition and is as described but the text of the story is not original: it has been amended. It is a pity Maurice Hindle [Editor] and Christopher Frayling [Professor of Cultural History] didn't mention that fact. Maybe they didn't know or maybe they feel that the reader doesn't need to know that the text is different from Mr Stoker's original.Q:How is it different?A:Like so many books nowadays the punctuation has been changed to suit publishers' custom and practice. At school, I was taught that the spoken word appears on the page enclosed in double commas [speech marks]. No doubt you were too. Quoted speech appears between single commas. Sadly, the British publishers have corrupted our written language by transposing the use of those punctuation marks. It seems unlikely, but true, that publishers in the USA have retained the correct use of punctuation marks.So, now that we know two highly qualified experts in English literature collaborated to adulterate a classic piece of work, what other amendments have they made to the text?I can't yet tell you but if I ever find an original copy, or as close to one as possible, I will let you know.

Like The Picture of Dorian Gray, Frankenstein and A Woman in White, this is a must read Gothic classic which doesn’t disappoint. Forget Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, this is a much more nuanced and detailed work which delivers more psychological than visceral horror.The topographical detail of Transylvania and Whitby is thoroughly researched and vivid. This Penguin edition comes with detailed footnotes which give relevant context and accompanying essays examining Stoker’s inspiration for the novel as well an exploration of sub themes such as Victorian sexuality and desire.First and foremost however this is a thrilling horror story, populated by convincing characters the reader cannot help empathise with and root for. Read it for the description of the scenery, the fast moving, tense plot and the multi perspective narrative told unusually by diaries, journals and telegrams.

Well, I’m a bit of a horror nut, so I’ve seen countless adaptations of Dracula over the years and was pretty familiar with the story before I started reading. That said, I’m going to be forty next year and I’ve made it my mission (note: not New Year’s Resolution because (a) it’s November, and (b) I don’t believe in them) to read a whole load of classics over the next few years so as to ensure if anyone makes an oblique reference or an obscure quote before I’m fifty, I’ll recognise the sucker.Hence, Dracula. Written in the form of notes, journals and diaries, the story follows Jonathan Harker - an English estate agent, finalising the sale of a house to a reclusive Transylvanian Count. Up in the Carpathian Mountains, young Harker finds himself ensconced and then trapped with the sharp-toothed, gaunt and lanky Count and his harem of undead lovelies, hoping and praying to return to his beloved Mina, unadulterated and in one piece.But as fate and real estate would have it, the Count is bound for an England unaccustomed to his bloody, somewhat carnal desires (I’ll remind readers that this was published in 1897 and the world has altered rather), and only Harker, his intended, the other men who wanted to marry her, and a Dutch doctor, Van Helsing, have any hope of stopping the monster.A rip-roaring tale, highly gothic and suspenseful despite the multitudinous film and TV adaptations on the box at this time of year. I did struggle a fair bit with the phonetic-writing in parts of the book. Some of the minor characters speak with various broad accents which are written as said. Although an aid to local flavour, this, coupled with Dr. Van Helsing’s rather broken English left me occasionally bewildered.That said, it’s a classic and everyone should read it.