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Bram Stoker's Dracula Omnibus
Count Dracula: Lord of the Living Dead.
Unhuman, a creature of the night he exists only to slake his monstrous thirst for human blood. And those he chooses as victims are themselves doomed to an eternity of torment, lusting for the life-blood of new prey...
This major omnibus of Bram Stoker's terror fiction has a specially commissioned introduction by leading author and critic Fay Weldon. In addition to Dracula itself, it includes The Lair of the White Worm and the pohsthumously published collection Dracula's Guest.
Unhuman, a creature of the night he exists only to slake his monstrous thirst for human blood. And those he chooses as victims are themselves doomed to an eternity of torment, lusting for the life-blood of new prey...
This major omnibus of Bram Stoker's terror fiction has a specially commissioned introduction by leading author and critic Fay Weldon. In addition to Dracula itself, it includes The Lair of the White Worm and the pohsthumously published collection Dracula's Guest.
543 pages, Hardcover
First published December 3, 1992
7 people are currently reading
118 people want to read
About the author
Bram Stoker
2,608 books5,860 followersIrish-born Abraham Stoker, known as Bram, of Britain wrote the gothic horror novel
Dracula
(1897).
The feminist Charlotte Mathilda Blake Thornely Stoker at 15 Marino crescent, then as now called "the crescent," in Fairview, a coastal suburb of Dublin, Ireland, bore this third of seven children. The parents, members of church of Ireland, attended the parish church of Saint John the Baptist, located on Seafield road west in Clontarf with their baptized children.
Stoker, an invalid, started school at the age of seven years in 1854, when he made a complete and astounding recovery. Of this time, Stoker wrote, "I was naturally thoughtful, and the leisure of long illness gave opportunity for many thoughts which were fruitful according to their kind in later years."
After his recovery, he, a normal young man, even excelled as a university athlete at Trinity college, Dublin form 1864 to 1870 and graduated with honors in mathematics. He served as auditor of the college historical society and as president of the university philosophical society with his first paper on "Sensationalism in Fiction and Society."
In 1876, while employed as a civil servant in Dublin, Stoker wrote a non-fiction book (The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland, published 1879) and theatre reviews for The Dublin Mail, a newspaper partly owned by fellow horror writer J. Sheridan Le Fanu. His interest in theatre led to a lifelong friendship with the English actor Henry Irving. He also wrote stories, and in 1872 "The Crystal Cup" was published by the London Society, followed by "The Chain of Destiny" in four parts in The Shamrock.
In 1878 Stoker married Florence Balcombe, a celebrated beauty whose former suitor was Oscar Wilde. The couple moved to London, where Stoker became business manager (at first as acting-manager) of Irving's Lyceum Theatre, a post he held for 27 years. The collaboration with Irving was very important for Stoker and through him he became involved in London's high society, where he met, among other notables, James McNeil Whistler, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the course of Irving's tours, Stoker got the chance to travel around the world.
The Stokers had one son, Irving Noel, who was born on December 31, 1879.
People cremated the body of Bram Stoker and placed his ashes placed in a display urn at Golders green crematorium. After death of Irving Noel Stoker in 1961, people added his ashes to that urn. Despite the original plan to keep ashes of his parents together, after death, people scattered ashes of Florence Stoker at the gardens of rest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_Stoker
The feminist Charlotte Mathilda Blake Thornely Stoker at 15 Marino crescent, then as now called "the crescent," in Fairview, a coastal suburb of Dublin, Ireland, bore this third of seven children. The parents, members of church of Ireland, attended the parish church of Saint John the Baptist, located on Seafield road west in Clontarf with their baptized children.
Stoker, an invalid, started school at the age of seven years in 1854, when he made a complete and astounding recovery. Of this time, Stoker wrote, "I was naturally thoughtful, and the leisure of long illness gave opportunity for many thoughts which were fruitful according to their kind in later years."
After his recovery, he, a normal young man, even excelled as a university athlete at Trinity college, Dublin form 1864 to 1870 and graduated with honors in mathematics. He served as auditor of the college historical society and as president of the university philosophical society with his first paper on "Sensationalism in Fiction and Society."
In 1876, while employed as a civil servant in Dublin, Stoker wrote a non-fiction book (The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland, published 1879) and theatre reviews for The Dublin Mail, a newspaper partly owned by fellow horror writer J. Sheridan Le Fanu. His interest in theatre led to a lifelong friendship with the English actor Henry Irving. He also wrote stories, and in 1872 "The Crystal Cup" was published by the London Society, followed by "The Chain of Destiny" in four parts in The Shamrock.
In 1878 Stoker married Florence Balcombe, a celebrated beauty whose former suitor was Oscar Wilde. The couple moved to London, where Stoker became business manager (at first as acting-manager) of Irving's Lyceum Theatre, a post he held for 27 years. The collaboration with Irving was very important for Stoker and through him he became involved in London's high society, where he met, among other notables, James McNeil Whistler, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the course of Irving's tours, Stoker got the chance to travel around the world.
The Stokers had one son, Irving Noel, who was born on December 31, 1879.
People cremated the body of Bram Stoker and placed his ashes placed in a display urn at Golders green crematorium. After death of Irving Noel Stoker in 1961, people added his ashes to that urn. Despite the original plan to keep ashes of his parents together, after death, people scattered ashes of Florence Stoker at the gardens of rest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_Stoker
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 29, 2023
Dracula
Premise –
The novel lacks a singular central character and commences with Jonathan Harker, a solicitor, embarking on a business trip to visit the castle of Count Dracula, a Transylvanian nobleman. Harker narrowly escapes the castle upon uncovering Dracula's vampiric nature. Subsequently, the Count relocates to England and brings terror to the coastal town of Whitby. A determined group of individuals, under the leadership of Professor Abraham Van Helsing, takes on the task of investigating, pursuing, and ultimately vanquishing Dracula.
I have seen the movie a dozen times, but I have never read the novel before. I also didn’t realize it was made up of journal entries, letters, newspaper clippings, and other documents. Which I kind of liked. It was an awesome way to tell this dramatic story. I also realized the plot is much different from the movie and book. I will not ruin it for you….but I like the way the book played out.
Dracula is a tale of horror, romance, and suspense, exploring themes of the supernatural, good versus evil, and the fear of the unknown. It has had a profound influence on vampire mythology and has become a cornerstone of the horror genre in literature and popular culture - 5/5
Lair of the White Worm
Premise –
A young man and a historian embark on an investigation into the terrifying legend of a countryside-devouring beast, only to unearth a deeper layer of truth in the tales than they had ever anticipated.
This is considered one of Bram Stoker's worst novels….and I agree. I do know he had a stroke while writing this novel, so it might have impacted the novel. I think the novel could be retold nowadays and possibly in another country, possibly deep south US or the outskirts of Australia.
The story itself is interesting, but there were too many missed opportunities, and it was messy. There are some major racist and sexist things in this book that also made me not like this tale.
Dracula’s Guest
Premise –
Basically the 1st chapter of the book Dracula. It was deleted before being published. The tale follows Jonathan Harker on his visit to Munich before leaving for Transylvania. Jonathan basically encounters various ominous and supernatural occurrences as he travels through a desolate and eerie landscape.
These events include a carriage ride with a mysterious and sinister coachman, an encounter with a beautiful woman who appears to be a vampire, and a series of unsettling events that intensify as the narrative unfolds. I am not sure why this was deleted from the original book. I think it would be a great addition to the story line.
Premise –
The novel lacks a singular central character and commences with Jonathan Harker, a solicitor, embarking on a business trip to visit the castle of Count Dracula, a Transylvanian nobleman. Harker narrowly escapes the castle upon uncovering Dracula's vampiric nature. Subsequently, the Count relocates to England and brings terror to the coastal town of Whitby. A determined group of individuals, under the leadership of Professor Abraham Van Helsing, takes on the task of investigating, pursuing, and ultimately vanquishing Dracula.
I have seen the movie a dozen times, but I have never read the novel before. I also didn’t realize it was made up of journal entries, letters, newspaper clippings, and other documents. Which I kind of liked. It was an awesome way to tell this dramatic story. I also realized the plot is much different from the movie and book. I will not ruin it for you….but I like the way the book played out.
Dracula is a tale of horror, romance, and suspense, exploring themes of the supernatural, good versus evil, and the fear of the unknown. It has had a profound influence on vampire mythology and has become a cornerstone of the horror genre in literature and popular culture - 5/5
Lair of the White Worm
Premise –
A young man and a historian embark on an investigation into the terrifying legend of a countryside-devouring beast, only to unearth a deeper layer of truth in the tales than they had ever anticipated.
This is considered one of Bram Stoker's worst novels….and I agree. I do know he had a stroke while writing this novel, so it might have impacted the novel. I think the novel could be retold nowadays and possibly in another country, possibly deep south US or the outskirts of Australia.
The story itself is interesting, but there were too many missed opportunities, and it was messy. There are some major racist and sexist things in this book that also made me not like this tale.
Dracula’s Guest
Premise –
Basically the 1st chapter of the book Dracula. It was deleted before being published. The tale follows Jonathan Harker on his visit to Munich before leaving for Transylvania. Jonathan basically encounters various ominous and supernatural occurrences as he travels through a desolate and eerie landscape.
These events include a carriage ride with a mysterious and sinister coachman, an encounter with a beautiful woman who appears to be a vampire, and a series of unsettling events that intensify as the narrative unfolds. I am not sure why this was deleted from the original book. I think it would be a great addition to the story line.
October 10, 2024
Physically, this is a nice hardcover edition of Dracula with a thought-provoking introduction by Fay Weldon. I quite liked Dracula, which I read with my book club. I think it will reward re-reading over time. It's so famous I don't think there's much I can add, so I'll turn to the other books in this volume.
The Lair of the White Worm in the next work in this omnibus. It's a novel with some good imaginative qualities that brings in elements I really like (the ancient history of Mercia, for example) but ultimately disappoints in it's execution - even H.P. Lovecraft thought it fell apart as a story! There are definitely a lot of 'coincidences' in the story which seem to make the author's life easier in justifying plot elements. To make matters worse, this omnibus contains the abridged version, which is only 28 chapters long, rather than 40 in the original, and missing about 2/5 of the book. It is so abridged it often doesn't make sense. I had to re-read several key sections to see if I could tease out the events. And I'm really not sure how much the flaws in the story owe to the editing process, and how much to the writer. I have another, unabridged edition of this, and I may give it a go sometime. I liked the concepts well enough - I'm curious if the full edition improves on the execution - or just makes things worse!
Finally, there's a collection of short stories called Dracula's Guest. The title story is an episode cut from Dracula for length. Apart from that, this collection contains a number of midling creepy tales - none really bad, but none especially exciting either. The most interesting thing about the collection is the anecdote that reveals the book was included as a gift to people who attended the 250th London performance of the theatre production. When opened, a little black bat, powered by elastic, flew out of the book. Now that's what I want in a Dracula edition!
The Lair of the White Worm in the next work in this omnibus. It's a novel with some good imaginative qualities that brings in elements I really like (the ancient history of Mercia, for example) but ultimately disappoints in it's execution - even H.P. Lovecraft thought it fell apart as a story! There are definitely a lot of 'coincidences' in the story which seem to make the author's life easier in justifying plot elements. To make matters worse, this omnibus contains the abridged version, which is only 28 chapters long, rather than 40 in the original, and missing about 2/5 of the book. It is so abridged it often doesn't make sense. I had to re-read several key sections to see if I could tease out the events. And I'm really not sure how much the flaws in the story owe to the editing process, and how much to the writer. I have another, unabridged edition of this, and I may give it a go sometime. I liked the concepts well enough - I'm curious if the full edition improves on the execution - or just makes things worse!
Finally, there's a collection of short stories called Dracula's Guest. The title story is an episode cut from Dracula for length. Apart from that, this collection contains a number of midling creepy tales - none really bad, but none especially exciting either. The most interesting thing about the collection is the anecdote that reveals the book was included as a gift to people who attended the 250th London performance of the theatre production. When opened, a little black bat, powered by elastic, flew out of the book. Now that's what I want in a Dracula edition!
April 25, 2020
I have left individual reviews of the books on each individual title, but I have to say that I did not enjoy White Worm at all. I definitely recommend giving that one a miss. The other two are good stories in essence, though I grew tired of reading things as written in accents as they were sometimes unintelligible and I thought the pacing was way slower than was good for me.
July 21, 2013
Dracula is well-known. It read as enjoyably as expected.
LotWW was AWFUL. Poor paragraphs, disconnected plotlines, a romantic heath with some lightning.
Dracula's Guest is a lovely compilation of short horror stories. It brought my review of the Omnibus back up to palatable.
LotWW was AWFUL. Poor paragraphs, disconnected plotlines, a romantic heath with some lightning.
Dracula's Guest is a lovely compilation of short horror stories. It brought my review of the Omnibus back up to palatable.
Read
February 28, 2008I have read and re-read Dracula, but haven't continued onto the next two stories, Lair of the White Worm and Dracula's Guest.
December 8, 2008
Made me a little nervous!
March 7, 2011
I thought these very good indeed. Pacey, well written, with that essential frisson of fear
that Gothic novels should deliver.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews