Customer Reviews

The New Annotated Dracula

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I just purchased THE NEW ANNOTATED DRACULA for the tidy price of $40, overcome with the desire to seek out and purchase the definitive edition of what may very well be the greatest horror story ever told. DRACULA has been in continuous publication since its debut in 1897, and that fact alone is a testament to the narrative's (like its primary protagonist's) immortality.

So did this edition measure up?

No.

Why?

Well, first of all, let me just say that by no means does this edition claim to be anything it is not--the sinlge most exhaustively annotated version of DRACULA ever. A good third of the book is entirely removed from the novel altogether, including prefaces and introductions in front of it, and numerous, NUMEROUS appendecies and afterwords after it.

However, that aside, I cannot really sanction this as the best version of DRACULA ever published, as many of the press reviews printed on the back of the jacket will tell you.

I have two main problems with this edition.

First of all, the lesser problem is that of the annotation itself. If you're the kind of fastidious person I like to think I am, you'll want to sit and read through every note on every page. Once you get through the first page of the novel, however, you'll have most likely changed your mind about that. I took me no less than two hours to read all the way through the preface, introduction, and introductory essay THE CONTEXT OF DRACULA before I even got to the novel, at which point I spent another half hour reading every single notation and, feeling really freakin' tired by this point, came to the somewhat depressing realization that I had only gotten through the first page of the novel.

The problem is that this edition is so heavily, HEAVILY annotated that it's virtually impossible to keep track of the actual narrative if you bother to read all the notes, which can go on for pages all on their own, and number up to three or four in a single sentence. However, it should be said that this is nothing less than I suppose you'd expect to find in the most heavily annotated version of DRACULA ever published; still, I found I was a little unprepared for the work that went into reading it.

My second problem, and my main problem, with this edition is that it proceeds under the ludicrous concept that DRACULA is not a work of fiction, but in fact a collection of real documents edited together by Stoker himself.

Oh yes. You read that right.

Right from the preface, Leslie Klinger the author of the notes and the novel's supplementary material, tells us that he will be annotating DRACULA as though it were a real story. When I first read this, it seemed like and interesting idea, and I was curious to see just how he would go about doing it. Unfortunately for myself, I was not pleased to find out.

Klinger goes on to say that Bram Stoker actually knew the Harker characters socially, and, having learned of their horrifying tale and believing that Dracula was not destroyed, resolved to publish their papers in order to warn the world of the threat of vampires, at which point Count Dracula himself appeared to Stoker and forced him to make changes to the narrative so as to make it seem more ficticious and to misinform the public about vampires, in order to protect himself from reprocussions.

Once again, I assure you that you read that right.

In taking this preposterous approach, Klinger not only effectively nullifies his own notations, making all that excessive reading pointless since it proceeds from a ficticious concept anyway, but also actually manages to lessen the effect of the novel as a great work of fiction. By taking the authorship away from Stoker and placing it in the hands of people who have never existed, you destroy that which makes DRACULA so remarkable in the first place: it is a book crafted out of a mightily massive mess of vampiric folklore and mythology combined with the social climate of the Victorian era as well as Stoker's own love of Gothic horror and the macabre. It may be difficult to believe that a simple Irish scholar could have crafted the single most influential piece of horror literature in history on his own, but it's sure as hell a lot easier to swallow than the idea that a 500-year-old vampire helped him do it.

Overall, this edition is NOT the way to read DRACULA if you've never read it before. I can only reccomend this to those who already know the novel inside and out, and want to know even more while toying with the possibility that it really could have happened. Which, incidentally, it didn't.

I honestly got more out of thumbing through the $4 pocket-sized paperback edition of DRACULA I first read when I was 10 than I got from dragging myself through THE NEW ANNOTATED DRACULA.

You have been warned.

I've always wanted to read Dracula, and I've thoroughly enjoyed the other annotated versions in this series. I've also been eyeing editor Leslie Klinger's three-volume annotated Sherlock Holmes for a while. Upon seeing this edition in a book store, I thought that a little hand-holding and behind-the-scenes insight would make this a fun read.

While this book is both gorgeous and thorough, and I applaud Klinger's exhaustive efforts, I was surprised and disappointed upon discovering that in both this edition and the Sherlock Holmes series, he employs the 'gentle fiction' that the stories are based on actual fact while preparing his annotations.

For me, being a casual but curious reader, an annotated edition should be a one-stop-shop to discover the facts behind the tales, without the reader having to do research. Instead I found that these two series superimpose the idea that they are based on true events. At first I thought I could just ignore the superfluous annotations (which would have trimmed or altered them by a full quarter.) But as I got further into it, they are not so easily ignored. There came a grey area where I began to wonder if what I was distilling from the fictionalized annotation was even close to the facts. For example, at one point early on it is insinuated that the story didn't actually happen in Transylvania, and that this was simply a cover up contrived by Stoker. I would instead have been more interested to know if Stoker had considered other locales and what course he took to finally choose Transylvania. Unfortunately, I may never know without reading a future annotated edition which dispenses with the 'true story' fiction, or without reading the other books mentioned and used by Klinger. Being a casual reader of Dracula I have no interest in delving into these other works and had instead hoped to discover more from this edition.

Another reviewer has stated that Klinger must not like the novel Dracula, and I have to disagree. Klinger clearly loves this book with all the efforts he put into his edition. However, the annotations do come across a bit on the terse side, even chastising Stoker at times, certainly when taking the fictional stance that Stoker altered the original words of the players. I can imagine that to sustain this fiction that the story actually happened must have been a monumental task for Klinger, but these accomplishments are lost on this reader. On a lesser note, it was a little distracting that Sherlock Holmes seemed to be mentioned so often in the annotations. I'd also like to note that the publishers did a disservice in their reproduction of Klinger's once-beautiful photographs. They are often dark, lacking contrast and detail.

Dracula was an enjoyable book, and Klinger's insight was thorough. Unfortunately, while this edition could have been the de facto annotated edition of Dracula, by taking the position that this is a true story, the editor has ensured that the book will sit merely as a curiosity until such time that his annotations can be re-edited to remove the 'gentle fiction.'

"The New Annotated Dracula" offers annotations and supplementary material by Leslie S. Klinger, who annotated the 3-volume "The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes" for Norton. This is a handsome, cumbersome volume, 8 ¾"w x 10 ¼"h x 1 ¾"d, weighing a hefty 3 pounds. There are color and black-and-white illustrations scattered throughout: photos of people, movies, stage productions, posters, and Dracula paraphernalia. Annotations run in a column beside the text, in slightly smaller font, and some pages fill up with nothing but annotations. This format makes the annotations easier to read than nanofont at the bottom of the page, but it makes the text of the novel more difficult to read.

There is an introduction by Neil Gaiman, followed by a 32-page essay by Klinger on "The Context of Dracula". Here he provides some basic information about Victorian England, "Dracula"'s reception in 1897, a brief history of vampire literature, and some biographical information on Bram Stoker. And Klinger introduces his gimmick: For the sake of his essays and annotations, Klinger assumes that "Dracula" is a historical document written by Bram Stoker to get the word out about Dracula -or perhaps to make people believe the vampire dead- based on the accounts of his acquaintances, who are the characters in the narrative. Stoker is supposed to have gotten his information from the (fictional) "Harker Papers", in which Jonathan Harker described the events of the novel. This silly fiction of Klinger's turns out to be annoying and confusing.

There are over 1500 annotations, and, to put it bluntly, most of them are taken from Clive Leatherdale's annotated "Dracula Unearthed" (1998), which is the most extensively annotated edition ever produced. Some are taken from Leonard Wolf's groundbreaking "The Essential Dracula" (published as "The Annotated Dracula" in 1975), which was the first annotated edition of "Dracula". I compared a few chapters note-for-note with "Dracula Unearthed". Most of the annotations came from Leatherdale, to the extent that his name should be on the cover. Klinger has re-worded them and, in cases where Leatherdale referred to source material, he has quoted from the source where Leatherdale only indicated page numbers.

The annotations that originate with Klinger -and they are the minority- fall into a few categories: comparisons between the published text of "Dracula" and a manuscript currently held by Paul Allen, comparisons with a 1901 abridged edition of the book, comparison to films, the occasional piece of Victorian trivia, and speculation on the text per Klinger's "gentle fiction" of it being based on the "Harker Papers". Annotations in the latter category are confusing, as the reader must stop and think about whether he is reading information or a further fiction. Comparisons to the manuscript are a curiosity, but we don't know what stage of the novel's development it represents. Klinger doesn't explain that the 1901 abridgement was aimed at a more popular audience and eliminated 15% of the text. The deletions remove some of the novel's subtext, making it more fluid but less interesting and perhaps less controversial. Klinger annotates only some of the deletions, however, not all of them.

Supplementary material follows the novel: "Dracula's Guest", which was a false start to the novel, later published as a short story. "The Dating of Dracula", which spins a fiction about the dates the events of the novel took place. "The Chronology of Dracula" charts the novel's major events. "Fictional Accounts of the Count" talks about book's that have taken up Stoker's Dracula character. "Sex, Lies, and Blood: Dracula in Academia" is a cursory presentation of the fashions of academic interpretations of the novel. "The Public Life of Dracula" lists stage and film productions of "Dracula". "Dracula's Family Tree" is a light treatment of vampire folklore in Eastern Europe and a look at modern-day fictional representations (speaking, of course, as if they are real).

It's difficult to say what audience "The New Annotated Dracula" is suited to. If you are looking for a scholarly annotated edition that offers more than the Norton Critical Edition, get Leatherdale's "Dracula Unearthed" (it is available in the UK). If you want something packed with interesting tidbits but a little lighter, try Leonard Wolf's "The Essential Dracula". The drawback is that it was written before the discovery of Bram Stoker's working notes, so some of the information is outdated. If you just want to read the novel, I recommend the Norton Critical Edition. This "New Annotated Dracula" is too big and heavy for that. "Dracula" aficionados are going to balk at "The New Annotated Dracula". I think it's intended for people with a casual interest in the novel who don't mind the bulk or the nonsense, but this edition contributes nothing to "Dracula" scholarship.

The first reviews here are excellent. My intent isn't to add more of the same, but first and foremost to point up a detail that make this volume particularly interesting. That is, the material on which editor Leslie Klinger draws most for his notes and revised ending isn't out of thin air - it's from a previously unknown Bram Stoker manuscript owned by Microsoft's Paul Allen to which he was given access. In other words, the commentary and revised ending aren't expansions, elaborations, or re-imaginings of this much loved but vastly and endlessly over-adapted and reinterpreted story. It's a fresh exposition - and sort of a director's cut, so to speak - of the original! This fact gives this book a place of immediate prominence in the vampire genre.

That's not to say that everything Klinger has noted necessarily adds in this way. Some items are truly trivial and could have been left out - side notes pointing out minor wording corrections in the published edition, for example. There are term definitions that are useful, but don't expand understanding of the text in the same way. So also illustrations of commercial stuff not directly related to the original book (e.g., movie posters and the like).

The reading can feel a little stilted because of the columnar format (annotations in one column, the book text in another). Still, it's better by far than footnotes. And if you want behind-the-scenes insight into the work required to translate a raw manuscript into a finished work, the manuscript annotations will do just that.

Definitely a must-have for the Stoker fan or student of the genre.

"Dracula" was not the first vampire novel, nor was it Bram Stoker's first book.

But after years of research, Stoker managed to craft the ultimate vampire novel, which has spawned countless movies, spinoffs, and books that follow the blueprint of the Transylvanian count. Eerie, horrifying and genuinely mysterious, this is a book that was crying out for the kind of loving annotation that "The New Annotated Dracula" graces it with.

First we have an eloquent introduction by dark fantasy master Neil Gaiman, which serves as the gateway to a longer, densely informative foreword by Leslie S. Klinger. Klinger does some pretty extensive exploration of the origins of vampire literature, the impact of the Dracula character, and his presence in mass media ever since Stoker whipped together this book. It's a nice, meaty intro to the story:

And on to that story: Real estate agent Jonathan Harker arrives in Transylvania, to arrange a London house sale to Count Dracula. But as the days go by, Harker witnesses increasingly horrific events, leading him to believe that Dracula is not actually human. His fiancee Mina arrives in Transylvania, and finds that he has been feverish. Meanwhile the count has vanished -- along with countless boxes filled with dirt.

And soon afterwards, strange things happen: a ship piloted by a dead man crashes on the shore, after a mysterious thing killed the crew. A lunatic talks about "Him" coming. And Mina's pal Lucy dies of mysterious blood loss, only to come back as an undead seductress. Dracula has arrived in England -- then the center of the Western world -- and intends to make it his own...

The entire text is reworked into columns, with EXTENSIVE footnoting off to each side -- Klinger loads the text down with literary interpretations, historical explanations, places, attitudes of the time, clarification (the old woman who gave Harker the rosary, says Klinger, was probably a Hungarian immigrant) and even a bit of nitpicking. At times it gets a bit long-winded, but for sheer volume of explanatory information those footnotes can't be beat. It's a big thick chunk of a book though, so not advises for casual walking-around reading.

"Dracula" is the grandaddy of Lestat and other elegantly alluring bloodsuckers, but that isn't the sole reason why this novel is a classic. It's also incredibly atmospheric, and very well-written. Not only is it very freaky, in an ornate Victorian style, but it is also full of restrained, quiet horror and creepy eroticism. What's more, it's shaped the portrayal of vampires in movies and books, even to this day.

Despite already knowing what's going on for the first half of the book, it's actually kind of creepy to see these people whose lives are being disrupted by Dracula, but don't know about vampires. It's a bit tempting to yell "It's a vampire, you idiots!" every now and then, but you can't really blame them. Then the second half kicks in, with accented professor Van Helsing taking our heroes on a quest to save Mina from Dracula.

And along the way, while our heroes try to figure stuff out, Stoker spins up all these creepy hints of Dracula's arrival. Though he wrote in the late 19th-century manner, very verbose and a bit stuffy, his skill shines through. The book is crammed with intense, evocative language, with moments like Dracula creeping down a wall, or the dead captain found tied to the wheel. Once read, they stick in your mind throughout the book.

It's also a credit to Stoker that he keeps his characters from seeming like idiots or freaks, which they could have easily seemed like. Instead, he puts little moments of humanity in them, like Van Helsing admitting that his wife is in an asylum. Even the letters and diaries are written in different styles; for example, Seward's is restrained and analytical, while Mina's is exuberant and bright.

Even Dracula himself is an overpowering presence despite his small amount of actual screen time, and not just as a vampire -- Stoker presents him as passionate, intense, malignant, and probably the smartest person in the entire book. If Van Helsing hadn't thwarted him, he probably would have taken over the world -- not the Victorian audience's ideal ending.

Intelligent, frightening and very well-written, "Dracula" is the well-deserved godfather of all modern vampire books and movies -- and "The New Annotated Dracula" is a worthy exploration of that book.

Leslie S Klinger is a renowned scholar-author who has also produced brilliant works such as The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes [Vols I, II and III] and this New Annotated Dracula is the most recent annotated work on the famous 1897 Gothic horror novel penned by Bram Stoker. The other annotated Dracula works that are well-known are by renowned Dracula scholar Leonard Wolf[ 1975 & 1993 versions], and also the 1979 "The Essential Dracula" by Raymond McNally and Radu Florescu.

Plot summary: The story of Dracula the vampire is told through a series of journal entries and letters `voiced' by several narrators/protagonists. This classic tale of terror begins with young Jonathan Harker, an Englishman who travels to the Carpathian region to provide legal advice to the mysterious Count Dracula who is in the midst of settling a real-estate transaction located in England. Harker is at first charmed by Dracula, but this soon turns to revulsion and horror when he becomes acquainted with Dracula's nocturnal activities, and barely survives an encounter with Dracula's brides. Soon after, the Demeter, a Russian ship is found on the shores of Whitby, in England with its crew missing [only the Captain's body is found]. Dracula has found his way to England and starts moving in on his prey - young Mina Murray, Jonathan's fiancée and also Mina's good friend, Lucy Westenra. When Lucy begins to waste away from a strange `illness', Professor Abraham Van Helsing is brought in and he suspects that vampiric forces are at work but keeps it a secret until he can prove it for certain. Meanwhile, Dracula has enlisted the help of mad Renfield, an asylum inmate. Alas, Lucy dies and is buried, but not long after, begins a new `life' as the undead, stalking young victims and Van Helsing and Arthur Holmwood [Lucy's fiancée] put an end to the terror by staking her heart. Meanwhile, Jonathan and Mina [having been married abroad]return to aid Van Helsing and company against Dracula. Poor Mina becomes his next target and it is left to Van Helsing and his assistants to get rid of the evil scourge once and for all before Mina is lost to them forever.

"Dracula" has been the inspiration for countless vampire stories and cinematic versions ever since. In this latest annotated Dracula, Leslie S Klinger has produced a comprehensive and extensively-researched work which makes use of the entire Manuscript [which until 2005 had not been available in its entirety].Klinger also takes a rather unique approach to the text , as he explains in his Preface "I employ a gentle fiction here, as I did in The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, that the events described in Dracula "really took place" and that the work presents the recollections of real persons, whom Stoker has renamed...to conceal their identities."

With this delightfully novel premise, Klinger proceeds to scrutinize all aspects of "Dracula" - providing background of the times, showing the `cover-ups', the inconsistencies, etc whilst at the same time refraining from a thorough examination of the sub-texts of the work. What impressed me most was how well-organized this work was, beginning with:
The Context of Dracula [the Victorian setting, Stoker's background, and the `people' of Dracula],
The Text of Dracula [Author's Preface, Chapters 1-27] - with copious annotations on each page [the text is `chopped' into columns with the notes to the side]
Appendix 1: "Dracula's Guest"
Appendix 2: The Dating of Dracula
Appendix 3: The Chronology of Dracula
Appendix 4: A Whitby Glossary
Part II : Considering the Count [examines fictional accounts, Dracula in academia, on stage and screen, his family tree, and friends] and finally Klinger provides a comprehensive bibliography and textual sources.

To further enhance this glorious work - besides the 1500 or so annotations , there are about 400 illustrations [B&W and full-color] of photographs, playbills, diagrams, maps, advertisements, pictures of cinematic stills etc.

Final verdict - this is a must-have for fans and scholars of Dracula and anyone who has an interest in Gothic literature and/or the Victorian era.

Bram Stoker's Dracula, of course, needs no introduction. It's a great book that, even though it's been pretty much been run to the ground with countless movies, sequels, merchandising, etc, still holds up today. Despite it's age, it's still accessible and, believe it or not, quite scary at times. There's some really dark stuff in here, from Dracula feeding children to his wives to his 'rape' of Mina in which he cuts open his chest and forces her to drink his blood. It's definitely required reading for any serious fan of horror/Gothic literature.

This book, however, is not the way to experience it.

For what it's worth, it's clear Klinger is an expert on the text. He's done a lot of research, even going as far as to obtain 'deleted scenes' for Stoker's early draft which shed new light on aspects of the novel. The amount of sheer information here could likely fill a book by itself. The problem, however, is how Klinger presents it.

Leslie Klinger, prior to this, had annotated Sherlock Holmes in an huge three volume set. There, he employed the "Sherlockian game" of treating the stories as "gentle fiction"; that Holmes and Watson really existed and that the stories were records of the pursuits. It's apparently a little game that Sherlock fans like to play, and for the most part, it really didn't interfere with the enjoyment of the stories.

So when he annotated Dracula, he decided to play the same game, treating the story of Dracula as a factual account based on a series of documents called "The Stoker Papers"--that Stoker knew the cast personally and had published a series of their documents for the public. It doesn't work. I hope I don't have to explain why it's easier for the reader to suspend their disbelief that Sherlock Holmes was a real person over the Count.

Treating Dracula as non-fiction would have been distracting enough, but Klinger goes even further and derails the story by suggesting that what Stoker wrote isn't what "really" happened. For example, Klinger states the story didn't take place in Transylvania, and Dracula wasn't really killed. He reasons that Dracula forced Stoker to change the story to protect himself (or something along those lines). Imagine if you were reading Lord of the Rings, and someone said what Tolkien wrote isn't what REALLY happened--that Sauron was triumphant, and that there was a conspiracy by the forces of darkness to prevent Tolkien from letting the public know the 'truth'.

Klinger is clearly more of a Sherlock fan than a Dracula fan--whereas he often treated his Sherlock annotations with good humor and a respect for the text, he seems to be almost snidely condescending towards Dracula's flaws and inconsistencies. I.E. "Seward's clearly not a good doctor, or else he would have..." or "One wonders why Van Helsing acts so brashly, doesn't he realize..." You get the picture. It quickly grows annoying, and it's not hard to see why people here have assumed that Klinger dislikes the book despite all the research he put into it.

What makes this such a disappointment is that this could have been a great book. It's very handsomely designed and would look good on any shelf. Had Klinger treated Dracula as a work of fiction and discussed it as such, it could have been a fascinating read. It's clear that he knows a lot about the original text. If he had simply explained the history behind the novel, relevant information about the time it was written and its relevance to the story, and a discussion of the literary criticism that it has received over the years this could have been the definitive presentation Dracula. Instead, it's a underwhelming literary exercise from an editor who thinks he is cleverer than he really is.

I have to admit that I've just started reading this annotated edition of Dracula, but I've become so annoyed at the annotator I wanted to go ahead and vent. However, I see two very fine reviews here on Amazon -- M.Bean of 22 Feb 2009, and Andrew Babino of July 7, 2009 - that I'll just say that they are both right on the money. The annotator's "fiction" that Dracula really happened is just silly, and really confuses many of the annotations - as one of the aforementioned gentlemen wrote, you have to spend much more time than you'd like trying to "decode" Klinger, the annotator. I also thought I would love all the wonderful detail and minutia in the notes - but there's just too many; too many of them are rather boring, and too many just go to reinforce Klinger's "fiction." Also, after reading the preface material, I am totally confused about which of the first two editions of Dracula is presented in this edition - the original first version (which is the version I'd prefer to read), or the second abridged version (which Klinger says Stoker bowdlerized under pressure from the "real" Dracula). If I hadn't already purchased this version, I'd switch to the Norton Critical Edition of Dracula.

"Dracula" is an important novel and a quite good one you should definitely read if you are into horror, fantasy, science-fiction, pop culture, or Victorian literature. This edition annotated by Leslie Klinger has lots of interesting essays, photos and annotations about other works of fiction about vampires as well about society and technology in 19th century Europe that I can also recommend.

Unfortunately, this edition of "Dracula" includes many many notes that add little to the experience of reading the novel, or even detract from it. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of notes that point out that Stoker's descriptions of places in London, Whitby, or Transylvania are not quite accurate, or that Stoker's descriptions of medical procedures are not accurate. These are just a burden to the reader who is reading the novel as a work of art, as they break up the flow of the story. Also, because Klinger engages in the bizarre conceit that Count Dracula and his mortal foes were real people and the novel is part of a cover up of real events engineered by Stoker and the characters, there are scores of notes analyzing every move made by Dracula and the vampire hunters, considering if the moves were tactically sound and if they "really happened," or are part of Stoker's "cover up" of the "real story of Count Dracula."

Reading Klinger's notes while reading Stoker's novel is like watching a movie about Napoleon while some expert on Napoleon who disagrees with the director's attitude about Napoleon is sitting next to you telling you what is "wrong" with every frame of the movie. Some of what Klinger has to say is interesting, but alot of what he says makes reading the book less enjoyable.

My advice is that you read some affordable paperback edition of "Dracula," and then check out this massive tome from the library and browse through it.

I was so excited to be getting this new annotated volume of Dracula. As another reviewer put it, what's fascinating about this work of repressed sexuality and danger is its late Victorian context. Hoping to get a better view of this context I ordered the latest, biggest annotated Dracula I could get my hands on. I should have sprung for the 1970's annotated Dracula, instead. This one pretends that the events and characters of Dracula are real. Instead of being entertaining, this conceit is distracting and confusing. I couldn't be more disappointed. There should be some kind of warning printed on this volume, and it should be shelved in the humor section.