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Karen Elizabeth Gordon

The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed Hardcover – Illustrated, August 10, 1993

by Karen Elizabeth Gordon (Author)

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Playful and practical, this is the style book you can't wait to use, a guide that addresses classic questions of English usage with wit and the blackest of humor. Black-and-white illustrations throughout.

Print length

192 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Pantheon
Publication date

August 10, 1993
Dimensions

7.6 x 0.78 x 9.6 inches
ISBN-10

0679418601
ISBN-13

978-0679418603
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Karen Elizabeth Gordon is no ordinary grammarian, and her works (including The New Well-Tempered Sentence, Torn Wings and Faux Pas, and The Disheveled Dictionary)--are no ordinary books of grammar. A special edition of the 1984 classic, The Deluxe Transitive Vampire is populated by a wickedly decadent cast of gargoyles, mastodons, murderous debutantes, and, yes, vampires (both transitive and otherwise), who cavort and consort in order to illustrate basic principles of grammar. The sentences are intoxicating--"How he loved to dangle his participles, brush his forelock off his forehead with his foreleg, and gaze into the aqueous depths"--but the rules and their explanations are as sound as any you might find in Strunk and White. Outlining the building blocks of the English language, from parts of speech to phrases and clauses, The Deluxe Transitive Vampire goes on to exorcise such grammatical demons as passive voice, fragments, comma splices, and run-on sentences. At last, a handbook of grammar you will actually want to read. In the words of Gordon's preface, "Howling, exploding, crackling, flickering with new life-forms, and drunk on fresh blood (some of mine is certainly missing), this deluxe edition reminds us on every page that words, too, have hoofs and wings to transport us far and deep."

From the Inside Flap

Playful and practical, this is the style book you can't wait to use, a guide that addresses classic questions of English usage with wit and the blackest of humor. Black-and-white illustrations throughout.

From the Back Cover

Here now is an enlarged version of the only handbook of grammar you will ever want to read. With this special edition, Karen Gordon gives the reader more illustrations and even more examples of confusing appositives, the many uses of gerunds, the complicated matter of agreements. The Deluxe Transitive Vampire spins a lively gothic narrative with such characters as the Debutante, famous courtesan, wolf, bat, vampire, mastodon, pizza chef, lummox, lamia, and trilingual solitary. Gordon conjures up this eccentric cast with a uniquely wicked, witty and playful style. Yet every rule is explained with great clarity and precision. While entertaining the reader with the unexpected, she makes the most intricate and impossible usages clear for the first time. "You will not find a more charming or constructive companion than Karen Gordon", Kenneth Auchincloss reported in Newsweek when Ms. Gordon's punctuation book, The Well-Tempered Sentence, first appeared. "How rare it is to laugh as one studies a grammar text", Doris Grumbach exclaimed on National Public Radio. And in the New York Times, Herbert Mitgang warned, "(Karen Gordon's) sentences might make the Edwardian Brothers Fowler blush and, perhaps, Professor Strunk and Mr. White wince". For any reader who finds the rules of grammar irregular and confusing, this book should guide him with confidence through the maze of linguistics.

About the Author

KAREN ELIZABETH GORDON is the author of The Deluxe Transitive Vampire, The New Well-Tempered Sentence, The Ravenous Muse, The Red Shoes and Other Tattered Tales, The Disheveled Dictionary, Paris Out of Hand, Torn Wings and Faux Pas, and Out of the Loud Hound of Darkness. She divides her time between Berkeley, California, and France.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

It is not often that circumstances force me to utter more than one sentence at a time, or, for that matter, one after another—the usual arrangement of such things. And we are dealing with usual arrangements here: the form and ordering of words, be they mumbled, bellowed, or inscribed. Grammar is a sine qua non of language, placing its demons in the light of sense, sentencing them to the plight of prose. Don’t take an immediate and sullen dislike to this book or look askance before you’ve even begun. Do not mangle it yet. By allowing yourself to be misled by the subject you will end up more intimate with the knowledge that you already possess.

This is a dangerous game I’m playing, smuggling the injunctions of grammar into your cognizance through a ménage of revolving lunatics kidnapped into this book. Their stories are digressions toward understanding, a pantomime of raucous intentions in the linguistic labyrinth. By following them through this rough and twisting terrain you will be beguiled into compliance with the rules, however confounding those rules may appear to be. Learning is less a curse than a distraction. If you nuzzle these pages with abandon, writing will lose its terror and your sentences their disarray. I am not trifling with your emotions, nor flapping an antic mirage in your face. Whether you dawdle or maraud your way through these pages, you will return to them repeatedly to find your place and see your face.

Before I leave you in the embrace of the transitive vampire, I should introduce him to you, for he too went through the dubious process of education and name out none the worse for wear. He was not always a vampire. He can recall the bittersweet pleasure of a morsel of marzipan dissolving on his tongue and earlier memories of the vanished bliss of his mother’s breast. He was a child of immense generosity and voracious intellect. By the age of ten he had read all of Tolstoy and Pushkin and The Torments of Timofey, a neglected Slavic epic that greatly affected his sensibility and filled his young mind with dread. He knew suffering from the inside out, abjection like the back of his hand, which was slender and silken and thrilling to all who were touched by him.

When his manhood set in, our hero set out from home to seek his fortune, or at least his way. The mountains of his mother country were monstrously metaphysical. Words reposed in stones, and it was here, high above the cradle of his childhood, that his nature and purpose revealed themselves, not far from the howling wolves. No one knows quite how it happened, but he came back decidedly changed, transfixed through some secret effect. He had become one of the night’s creatures, with a grammar he had received from the great and jagged unknown. Treading carefully among the broken rules, he returned to set things straight. It was a noble undertaking, and it was noted in his epitaph, although he is immortal, like language itself, and still prowling around.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pantheon; Revised edition (August 10, 1993)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 192 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0679418601
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0679418603
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.18 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.6 x 0.78 x 9.6 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #178,852 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #37 in Language Humor
- #205 in Grammar Reference (Books)
- #209 in Lawyers & Criminals Humor

Customer Reviews:
194 ratings

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5

194 global ratings

5 star		79%
4 star		12%
3 star		3%
2 star		2%
1 star		4%

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alexandreta2000

Holy crap! I just enjoyed reading a grammar book.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 5, 2012

Verified Purchase

See above.

That being said, it is definitely designed for someone who wants to be there really learning the grammar. It's not one of those technical manuals that will answer the quick question you have about that pesky comma. It's going to teach you why the comma is there and how to identify the parts of your sentence with the fluency to rearrange them for greater effect, thus avoiding having to include that comma at all. It wasn't all sunshine and roses, though, from the point of view of a grammatical craftsman who likes to compare constructions in French, German, Latin, and ancient Greek. Gordon swept the differentiation of tense from aspect under the rug, and the book was completely lacking a discussion of mood. Since that's kind of an enormous gaping hole in an otherwise charming, illustrative, and exhaustive book, I have to go 4 stars instead of 5.

6 people found this helpful

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JRT

Don't buy Kindle version

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 29, 2023

Verified Purchase

I got the kindle version and this is only a complaint against the kindle version. It is basically scanned pages whose orientation cannot be changed. Really disappointing.

Helpful

Mia J. Judkins

Quirky & delicious grammar

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 20, 2010

Verified Purchase

This is such a gorgeous book - the binding, hard cover and paper are sumptuous, and more to the point it makes grammar tantalizing. It gradually draws you in with its quirky illustrations & clever examples, and then all of a sudden you are hooked! It's a great resource for anyone who loves a few gargoyles, werewolves and vampires with their grammar. I wouldn't recommend it for someone who struggles with grammar and needs a basic textbook. If you love language and you're already comfortable with the basics of English grammar, then this is perfect. In fact it is *delightful*. I found myself sniggering out loud while reading the example usages of the gerund. It's not the sort of book that you read from cover to cover - I leave it on the coffee table and browse through it as I sip a cup of tea.

One person found this helpful

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Janet

Never a dull moment

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 15, 2021

Verified Purchase

This is a book that will entertain while teaching grammar skills. Great for people who think grammar rules are boring!

Helpful

Chi Jubilee

Bought for a college class

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 17, 2020

Verified Purchase

I bought this book for my collage class. We read one chapter from it, but later I picked it up to actually read. It was very fascinating.

Helpful

Trent M. Nicholson

A great addition to a reference library

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 19, 2000

Verified Purchase

It must have been quite a challenge writing a book that would be predominately read by all of us stick-in-the-mud grammar teachers. I think Gordon does a great job of catching the reader's attention while teaching some very (I'm sorry but it's true) dry material. I teach it, and even I hate reading about it!
By no stretch of the imagination is this the best book on grammar out. Nor is this the best book written on the subject. I would equate it to a grammar coffee break. It's useful, but also pleasant. If you want a hyper-organized, get the answer quick reference book this is a poor choice. If, however, you want a fresh source of ideas to present to your hyperactive, low attention span, immediate gratification students you may find this quite a bit more useful that diagramming you millionth sentence.

14 people found this helpful

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Andy M.

Great and very different learning experience...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 10, 2013

Verified Purchase

This book was recommended to me by a college professor to help me with grammar and sentence structure etc. Not only has it helped me improve and grasp general writing rules but I've never seen or read a book written in this way before It catches my attention because of the creatures and topics for each of the sentences and this makes this book the opposite to boring; in fact I'm smiling as I'm learning because of the amusement the author has managed to infuse into this very easy to follow and insightful learning tool. Highly recommended not only for it's easy to grasp concepts, but also for it's twisting topics.

One person found this helpful

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gs64

Fun to read

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 7, 2015

Verified Purchase

Fun to read, and full of great examples and good explanations of the different parts of speech; but I wish it had contained a bit more formal theory and explanation as opposed to doing its teaching primarily by examples, as that always leaves me feeling like I might be missing something (try a "A Grammar Guide for You and I" by Good if you think you might like that opposite approach).

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