Frankenstein, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Signet Classics) - Shelley, Mary; Stoker, Bram; Stevenson, Robert Louis Review & Synopsis

 Synopsis

Three horror icons come together in one indispensable tome-with an introduction by Stephen King.

 "Within the pages of this volume you will come upon three of the darkest creations of English nineteenth-century literature; three of the darkest in all of English and American literature, many would say...and not without justification...These three creatures, presented together for the first time, all have a great deal in common beyond their power to go on frightening generation after generation of readers...but that fact alone should be considered before all others."-From the Introduction by Stephen King

  

 A scientist oversteps the bounds of conscience and brings to life a tortured creation. A young adventurer succumbs to the night world of a diabolic count. A man of medicine explores his darker side only to fall prey to it. They are legendary tales that have held readers spellbound for more than a century. The titles alone-Frankenstein, Dracula, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde-have become part of a universal language that serves to put a monster's face on the good-and-evil duality of our very human nature. And the authors-Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, and Robert Louis Stevenson-equally as mythic, are still possessed of an inventive and subversive power that can shake a reader to this day with something far more profound than fear. They gave root to the modern horror novel, and like the creatures they invented, they've achieved immortality.

Review

Born in London, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-51) was the daughter of William Godwin, a noted social theorist, and Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the leading literary women of the day. Her mother died soon after her birth, and Mary was raised first under the care of servants, then by a stepmother, and finally in the rarefied intellectual atmosphere of her father's circle. In May 1814, she met Percy Bysshe Shelley and, in July of the year, moved with him to the Continent. Two years later, after the death of Shelley's wife, the poet and Mary were able to wed. It was in Switzerland in 1816, as a result of a story-writing competition among the Shelleys and Lord Byron, that Mary began Frankenstein, her first and most famous novel. Published in 1818, it was followed by such works as Valperga (1823), The Last Man (1826), and Falkner (1837). In 1822, after the death of her husband, she devoted herself to the upbringing of her son and the securing of his right to the Shelley family title.

Bram Stoker (1847-1912) was born in Dublin. After attending Dublin University, he spent ten years as an Irish civil servant, trying to keep up his writing in his free time. By 1871, he had become the drama critic for the Dublin Mail and had gained experience as a newspaper editor, reporter, and short story writer. In 1878 he became the personal assistant to Sir Henry Irving, the foremost Shakespearean actor of his day, accompanying him on tours and managing Irving's theater. After Irving's death in 1905, Stoker worked on the literary staff of the London Telegraph. Dracula, his most famous work, was published in 1897.

 Throughout his life, Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was plagued by ill health, which interrupted his formal education at Edinburgh University. Pursuing the life of a bohemian during his twenties and thirties, he traveled around Europe and formed the basis of his first two books, An Inland Journey (1878) and Travels with a Donkey (1879). Stevenson gained his first popular success with Treasure Island (1883). The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which sold forty thousand copies in six months, and Kidnapped appeared in 1886, followed by The Black Arrow (1888) and The Master of Ballantrae (1889). In 1888, he set out with his family for the South Seas, traveling to the leper colony at Molokai, and finally settling in Samoa, where he died.

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. He is the recipient of the 2014 National Medal of Arts and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

Frankenstein; Dracula; Dr Jekyll and MR Hyde

A spine-tingling collection of terrifying classics with an introduction by horror master Stephen King. The mesmerizing story of a demented scientist's monster creation; the horror masterpiece that has led to countless vampire novels and films; and the ultimate tale of the never-ending battle between good and evil--these frightening works continue to entrall even the boldest readers. Reissue.

The mesmerizing story of a demented scientist's monster creation; the horror masterpiece that has led to countless vampire novels and films; and the ultimate tale of the never-ending battle between good and evil--these frightening works ..."

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley ; Dracula by Bram Stoker ; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson ; Introduction by Stephen King ; A Signet Classic

The story of Victor Frankenstein and of the monstrous creature he created has held the reading public spellbound since its publication over 150 years ago. A novel of tense and steadily mounting horror, it offers a searching illumination of the human condition in its portrayal of a scientist who oversteps the bounds of conscience, and of a lonely, tortured monster brought to life in an alien world. This masterpiece of Gothic horror is the story of archetypal evil and the eternal struggle between life and death. It is the legend of the vampire, who feeds a diabolic craving into the veins of his victims while drawing form them the human blood that is his only sustenance. The hypnotic spell the Dracula casts over the reader will linger through many a black and stormy night. This classic tale of terror probes with frightening accuracy into the deepest recesses of human emotion, describing in chilling detail the evil demon within all of us that awaits only the proper catalyst to set it free. A vivid re-creation of the never-ending battle between good and evil, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is an electrifying warning of the danger which faces all who fail to restrain the darker side of the human personality.

The story of Victor Frankenstein and of the monstrous creature he created has held the reading public spellbound since its publication over 150 years ago."

Wilkie Collins, Vera Caspary and the Evolution of the Casebook Novel

Wilkie Collins was one of the most popular novelists during England’s Victorian era. While Collins scholarship has often focused on social issues, this critical study explores his formal ingenuity, particularly the novel of testimony constructed from epistolary fiction, trial reports and prose monologue. His innovations in form were later mirrored by Vera Caspary, who adapted The Woman in White three times into contemporary fiction. This text explores how the formal dialogue between Collins and Caspary has linked sensation fiction with noir thrillers and film noir.

Print. Stevenson , Robert Louis . Dr . Jekyll and Mr . Hyde . Introduction by Stephen King. New York: Signet Classic , 1978. Print. Stewart, Mary . Madame, Will You Talk? New York: William Morrow, 1955. Print. Stoker , Bram . Dracula ."

The Major Plays

Anton Chekhov The Major Plays Ivanov * The Sea Gull * Uncle Vanya * The Three Sisters * The Cherry Orchard “Let the things that happen onstage be just as complex and yet just as simple as they are in life,” Chekhov once declared. “For instance, people are having a meal, just having a meal, but at the same time, their happiness is being created, or their lives are being smashed up.” So it is that his plays express life through subtle construction, everyday dialogue, and an electrically charged atmosphere in which even the most casual words and actions assume great importance in his characters’ lives. This principle sets his plays apart from the rest, steering them clear of melodrama, and draws the audience into the lives of Chekhov’s colorful characters. Because of his adherence to realism, the playwright has been called an “incomparable artist of life.”* “What makes his work great is that it can be felt and understood not only by any Russian but by anybody in the world.”—*Leo Tolstoy With a Foreword by Robert Brustein and an Afterword by Rosamund Bartlett

READ THE TOP 20 SIGNET CLASSICS ANIMAL FARM BY GEORGE ORWELL 1984 BY GEORGE ORWELL NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF ... FRANKENSTEIN ; DRACULA ; DR . JEKYLL AND MR . HYDE BY MARY SHELLEY , BRAM STOKER , AND ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON THE CLASSIC SLAVE ..."

Far From the Madding Crowd

Gabriel Oaks observes Bathsheba Everdene, the young mistress of Weatherbury Farm, fall victim to bad decisions and romantic impulses, unaware of the stroke of fate that will finally bring about their union.

READ THE TOP 20 SIGNET CLASSICS ANIMAL FARM BY GEORGE ORWELL 1984 BY GEORGE ORWELL NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF ... FRANKENSTEIN ; DRACULA ; DR . JEKYLL AND MR . HYDE BY MARY SHELLEY , BRAM STOKER , AND ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON THE CLASSIC SLAVE ..."

Bleak House

Widely regarded as Dickens’s masterpiece, Bleak House centers on the generations-long lawsuit Jarndyce and Jarndyce, through which “whole families have inherited legendary hatreds.” Focusing on Esther Summerson, a ward of John Jarndyce, the novel traces Esther’s romantic coming-of-age and, in classic Dickensian style, the gradual revelation of long-buried secrets, all set against the foggy backdrop of the Court of Chancery. Mixing romance, mystery, comedy, and satire, Bleak House limns the suffering caused by the intricate inefficiency of the law. The text of this Modern Library Paperback Classic was set from the first single-volume edition, published by Bradbury & Evans in 1853, and reproduces thirty-nine of H. K. Browne’s original illustrations for the book.

READ THE TOP 20 SIGNET CLASSICS ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell 1984 EY GEORGE ORwell. ... Beowulf (Burron RAFFEL, TRANslator) FRANKENSTEIN by MARY SHELLEY ALICE's ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND & THROUGH THE LookING GLAss by Lewis Carroll."

Stephen King's America

Take a closer look at these subtexts and discover a new dimension in the reading of Stephen King's fiction. By focusing on these issues, and by presenting four rich interviews with men close to the work of Stephen King, Stephen King's America lifts the veil that is the surface of his stories, shining a pleasantly distinct light on the sources that are both his subliminal and apparent strengths as a modern author.

... influenced King's work include the " S " -authored classics of the genre , such as Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley , Dracula by Bram Stoker , and The Strange Case of Dr . Jekyll and Mr . Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson ."

American Zombie Gothic

Zombie stories are peculiarly American, as the creature was born in the New World and functions as a reminder of the atrocities of colonialism and slavery. The voodoo-based zombie films of the 1930s and '40s reveal deep-seated racist attitudes and imperialist paranoia, but the contagious, cannibalistic zombie horde invasion narrative established by George A. Romero has even greater singularity. This book provides a cultural and critical analysis of the cinematic zombie tradition, starting with its origins in Haitian folklore and tracking the development of the subgenre into the twenty-first century. Closely examining such influential works as Victor Halperin's White Zombie, Jacques Tourneur's I Walked with a Zombie, Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2, Dan O'Bannon's The Return of the Living Dead, Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, and, of course, Romero's entire "Dead" series, it establishes the place of zombies in the Gothic tradition. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

 Shelley , Mary . Frankenstein . Edited by Johanna M. Smith. Boston: Bedford Books, 1992. _____. The Last Man. ... Stevenson , Robert Louis . Dr . Jekyll and Mr . Hyde . New York: Signet Classic , 2003. Stoker , Bram . Dracula ."

Encyclopedia of Gothic Literature

Presents an alphabetical reference guide detailing the lives and works of authors associated with Gothic literature.

New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1960. Smollett, Tobias. The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988. Stevenson , Robert Louis . Dr . Jekyll and Mr . Hyde . New York: Bantam Books, 1981. ———."

Knowing Fear

Tracing the development of horror entertainment since the late 18th century, this study argues that scientific discovery, technological progress, and knowledge in general have played an unparalleled role in influencing the evolution of horror. Throughout its many subgenres (biological horror, cosmic horror and others) and formats (film, literature, comics), horror records humanity's uneasy relationship with its own ability to reason, understand, and learn. The text first outlines a loose framework defining several distinct periods in horror development, then explores each period sequentially by looking at the scientific and cultural background of the period, its expression in horror literature, and its expression in horror visual and performing arts.

and Other Subliminal Fantasies in Bram Stoker's Dracula ,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 2, no. ... James Payne, quoted in The Strange Case of Dr . Jekyll and Mr . Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (New York: Scribner's, 1886), ..."

SOMETHING WICKED: 560+ Horror Classics, Macabre Tales & Supernatural Mysteries

Musaicum Books presents to you this unique collection, designed and formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. Content: Edgar Allan Poe: The Masque of the Red Death The Murders in the Rue Morgue… H. P. Lovecraft: The Call of Cthulhu The Dunwich Horror… Henry James: The Turn of the Screw… Mary Shelley: Frankenstein… Arthur Conan Doyle: The Hound of the Baskervilles… Bram Stoker: Dracula The Jewel of Seven Stars… Gaston Leroux: The Phantom of the Opera Washington Irving: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow… Robert Louis Stevenson: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde… James Malcolm Rymer: Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street H. G. Wells: The Island of Doctor Moreau Richard Marsh: The Beetle Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: Carmilla Uncle Silas… Nikolai Gogol: Dead Souls… Rudyard Kipling: The Phantom Rickshaw… Hugh Walpole: Portrait of a Man with Red Hair All Souls' Night Robert E. Howard: The 'John Kirowan' Saga The 'De Montour' Saga Cthulhu Mythos M. R. James: Ghost Stories of an Antiquary A Thin Ghost and Others Wilkie Collins: The Haunted Hotel The Dead Secret… The Woman in White Guy de Maupassant: The Horla… E. F. Benson: The Room in the Tower The Man Who Went Too Far… Nathaniel Hawthorne: The House of the Seven Gables Rappaccini's Daughter The Birth Mark… Ambrose Bierce: Can Such Things Be? The Ways of Ghosts Some Haunted Houses Arthur Machen: The Great God Pan… William Hope Hodgson: The Ghost Pirates Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder… M. P. Shiel: Shapes in the Fire… Ralph Adams Cram: Black Spirits and White Grant Allen: The Reverend John Creedy… Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto William Thomas Beckford: Vathek Matthew Gregory Lewis: The Monk Ann Radcliffe: The Mysteries of Udolpho Jane Austen: Northanger Abbey Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights Charles Dickens: The Mystery of Edwin Drood Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray Marie Belloc Lowndes: From Out the Vast Deep

The Call of Cthulhu, Frankenstein , Dracula , The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Phantom of the Opera, The Sleepy Hollow, Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde , The Island of Doctor Moreau... H. P. Lovecraft, H. G. Wells, ..."

The European Studies Journal

 Shelley , Mary . Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus . 1817. Oxford : Oxford UP , 1991 . ... Stevenson , Robert Louis . Dr . Jekyll and Mr . Hyde and Other Stories . 1885. London : Penguin Classics , 1979 . Stoker , Bram . Dracula ."

LJ Special Report

... who acknowledged his debt to Poe , Mary Shelley's Frankenstein , or the Modern Prometheus , Bram Stoker's Dracula , Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr . Jekyll and Mr . Hyde , Fritz Leiber's Conjure Wife and the more recent Rosemary's Baby ..."