Dracula - Softcover

Bram Stoker

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1580493823 ISBN 13: 9781580493826

Publisher: Prestwick House, Inc., 2005

Synopsis

This Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Classics™ edition of Dracula includes a glossary and notes to help the modern reader appreciate Stoker' s allusions, rich vocabulary, and Victorian setting.

An apparently routine business venture becomes a battle for a young man' s very soul. Almost too late, Jonathan Harker realizes that the charismatic and seductive Count Dracula of Transylvania has come to England with a purpose much more sinister than merely to purchase an English estate. Will the Count succeed in his quest to create a race of blood-lusting creatures of the night?

Which will prove the stronger — superstition or science? Defiantly challenging Victorian conventions, Bram Stoker 's Dracula examines the nature of evil and arrives at the horrific conclusion that the forces which would destroy humanity are not lurking in the shadows of the night, but within the human soul.

Modern readers still find that their own nightmares are evoked by Lucy's and Mina's battle against succumbing to the seductive enticements of the soulless vampire.

About this title

Review:

Dracula is one of the few horror books to be honored by inclusion in the Norton Critical Edition series. (The others are Frankenstein, The Turn of the Screw, Heart of Darkness, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and The Metamorphosis.) This 100th-anniversary edition includes not only the complete authoritative text of the novel with illuminating footnotes, but also four contextual essays, five reviews from the time of publication, five articles on dramatic and film variations, and seven selections from literary and academic criticism. Nina Auerbach of the University of Pennsylvania (author of Our Vampires, Ourselves) and horror scholar David J. Skal (author of Hollywood Gothic, The Monster Show, and Screams of Reason) are the editors of the volume. Especially fascinating are excerpts from materials that Bram Stoker consulted in his research for the book, and his working papers over the several years he was composing it. The selection of criticism includes essays on how Dracula deals with female sexuality, gender inversion, homoerotic elements, and Victorian fears of "reverse colonization" by politically turbulent Transylvania.

Book Description:

While serving as actor Henry Irving's business manager at the Lyceum Theatre in London, Bram Stoker (1847-1912) also pursued his literary interests. In this Gothic horror novel of 1897, which brought him international fame, he presents the chilling vampire Count Dracula, modelled in part on Irving's powerful personality.

About this edition

• Publisher: Prestwick House, Inc.
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1580493823
• ISBN 13: 9781580493826
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 376