The New Annotated Dracula (The Annotated Books)

This is not the Klinger "New Annotated Dracula." No annotations at all. Do not pay for it. Badly formatted rip off. Amazon should be ashamed, and Leslie S. Klinger and his publisher should sue them for damaging his reputation.

First, Amazon needs to change the description. This book is not annotated. Second, it is very poorly published. The publisher left the hyphens in words that originally had a line break. DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY!

This is not the annotated version. It's not anything but plain text. Amazon has it listed as the annotated one with an 88% reduced price but this is just a POS basic edition. I don't know if they've been hacked or maybe it's a glitch, no idea. All I know is Amazon has this listed as genuine. DO NOT BUY THIS KINDLE EDITION.

I have always found Dracula to be 2nd or 3rd rate Victorian melodrama with gaping plot holes. For example, sometimes Van Helsing can be brilliant and at other times incredibly stupid. It all depends, apparently, on what Stoker felt were the demands of the plot. Because of these issues and others I have found Dracula to be a somewhat tough read. Klinger's conceit of treating the story as "real" and explaining the plot holes, questionable actions, and the rather abrupt ending as attempts to conceal the "truth" that Dracula is in fact still around and that other characters are his co-conspirators makes the book, for me, much more palatable and interesting. I agree with the issues that Klinger identifies and find his explanations imaginative and helpful in getting me through the book without being bothered by the ridiculousness of some of the episodes. I know that some other reviewers find this conceit disturbing, but they seem to have a much higher opinion of the original than I do. (I did find that this conceit in his Annotated Sherlock Holmes to be not so successful. But it did not become as unbearable and obsessive as in Baring-Gould's annotated Holmes.) Insofar as to the number of annotations that some other reviewers object to, Klinger belongs to the Martin Gardner school of annotating. In "The Annotated Alice", Gardner stated that he felt there are no bounds as to what can be annotated or how far afield from the story an annotator can go. Anything that the annotator feels is interesting and informative is fair game. This leads to a high density of annotations. As in any annotated book of this nature, there are times when one can wonder why the editor bothered to annotate an item, why some things were not annotated, some annotations that go into too much detail and some that don't go into enough detail. No annotated book that I have read is ideal. (One thing that I liked about Gardner's Alice is that he encouraged readers to submit comments and bring to his attention material and sources. He was fortunate that there were several editions of the Annotated Alice which allowed him to include updates.) Gardner also had an extensive introduction with information such as biographical information about Lewis Carroll, his milieu, the family (and the particular sister) that helped inspire Carroll, the specific events which lead to the story, its publication and reception. All this has been the template for the volumes in the Norton Annotated series, including this one. (I highly recommend Gardner's "The Annotated Hunting of the Snark" in this series.) A reader's reaction to all this depends on the reader. Some really like this approach, some don't, others are somewhat in between. I really like it. I want to know everything (well, just about everything) about the original. I feel that it brings new insights and dimensions to the book. Klinger does that in this book as well as his other volumes in this series. What may matter most here is that prospective readers have an idea in advance what to expect. There are times when I agree with reviewers that the annotations get in the way. However, I can ignore them if I choose. That's what I like. The material is there and I can go through it as I wish, or not. It's my choice. In conclusion, I feel that this edition is very worthwhile and adds to a reader's understanding of Dracula.

This book is poorly constructed. The notations are excessive, arrogant, egotistical, narrow-minded, judgmental, and inaccurate interpretations of the story, the author’s intentions, the character’s thoughts, feelings and motivations. The notations clog up the book, distract the reader, bog down the reading and make the story far less enjoyable. It also is excessively padded with other meaningless content: poorly duplicated photographs, woodcuts and other pointless items. The book does not need to be 613 pages. There is further waste of paper in the book: four pages at the very end are completely blank. There was no reason for it. Dracula’s Guest should have been at the front of the book and placed where it clearly belongs, which is before what is mistakenly presumed to have been Chapter One. Dracula’s Guest is actually Chapter One. If it had been placed there, the story would have made more sense and flowed better. On page 566, there is an inaccuracy. The film, Love At First Bite is mentioned scantily. The character played by Susan Saint James in the film was not an actress. She was a model who occasionally did commercials selling various products. Dog food and mouthwash were commercials she mentioned in the film. The ending of the book is not shockingly different. There is nothing remarkable about the book, with the exception of it being bloated with far too many pages, causing it to be difficult to lift due to excessive weight. The price was also ridiculously inflated.

If you like going down informational tangents based on this novel, this book is for you! Thanks Leslie!

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.

Incredibly well annotated. I haven't yet read the appendices, but I'm sure that they will be the same.

One of my absolute favorite books to have around.

My only issue is that I had hoped it would include Dracula's Guest. But it is an excellently put together annotated version of Dracula. My favorite version so far.

This is not the Klinger "New Annotated Dracula." No annotations at all. Do not pay for it. Badly formatted rip off. Amazon should be ashamed, and Leslie S. Klinger and his publisher should sue them for damaging his reputation.

First, Amazon needs to change the description. This book is not annotated. Second, it is very poorly published. The publisher left the hyphens in words that originally had a line break. DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY!

This is not the annotated version. It's not anything but plain text. Amazon has it listed as the annotated one with an 88% reduced price but this is just a POS basic edition. I don't know if they've been hacked or maybe it's a glitch, no idea. All I know is Amazon has this listed as genuine. DO NOT BUY THIS KINDLE EDITION.

I have always found Dracula to be 2nd or 3rd rate Victorian melodrama with gaping plot holes. For example, sometimes Van Helsing can be brilliant and at other times incredibly stupid. It all depends, apparently, on what Stoker felt were the demands of the plot. Because of these issues and others I have found Dracula to be a somewhat tough read. Klinger's conceit of treating the story as "real" and explaining the plot holes, questionable actions, and the rather abrupt ending as attempts to conceal the "truth" that Dracula is in fact still around and that other characters are his co-conspirators makes the book, for me, much more palatable and interesting. I agree with the issues that Klinger identifies and find his explanations imaginative and helpful in getting me through the book without being bothered by the ridiculousness of some of the episodes. I know that some other reviewers find this conceit disturbing, but they seem to have a much higher opinion of the original than I do. (I did find that this conceit in his Annotated Sherlock Holmes to be not so successful. But it did not become as unbearable and obsessive as in Baring-Gould's annotated Holmes.) Insofar as to the number of annotations that some other reviewers object to, Klinger belongs to the Martin Gardner school of annotating. In "The Annotated Alice", Gardner stated that he felt there are no bounds as to what can be annotated or how far afield from the story an annotator can go. Anything that the annotator feels is interesting and informative is fair game. This leads to a high density of annotations. As in any annotated book of this nature, there are times when one can wonder why the editor bothered to annotate an item, why some things were not annotated, some annotations that go into too much detail and some that don't go into enough detail. No annotated book that I have read is ideal. (One thing that I liked about Gardner's Alice is that he encouraged readers to submit comments and bring to his attention material and sources. He was fortunate that there were several editions of the Annotated Alice which allowed him to include updates.) Gardner also had an extensive introduction with information such as biographical information about Lewis Carroll, his milieu, the family (and the particular sister) that helped inspire Carroll, the specific events which lead to the story, its publication and reception. All this has been the template for the volumes in the Norton Annotated series, including this one. (I highly recommend Gardner's "The Annotated Hunting of the Snark" in this series.) A reader's reaction to all this depends on the reader. Some really like this approach, some don't, others are somewhat in between. I really like it. I want to know everything (well, just about everything) about the original. I feel that it brings new insights and dimensions to the book. Klinger does that in this book as well as his other volumes in this series. What may matter most here is that prospective readers have an idea in advance what to expect. There are times when I agree with reviewers that the annotations get in the way. However, I can ignore them if I choose. That's what I like. The material is there and I can go through it as I wish, or not. It's my choice. In conclusion, I feel that this edition is very worthwhile and adds to a reader's understanding of Dracula.

This book is poorly constructed. The notations are excessive, arrogant, egotistical, narrow-minded, judgmental, and inaccurate interpretations of the story, the author’s intentions, the character’s thoughts, feelings and motivations. The notations clog up the book, distract the reader, bog down the reading and make the story far less enjoyable. It also is excessively padded with other meaningless content: poorly duplicated photographs, woodcuts and other pointless items. The book does not need to be 613 pages. There is further waste of paper in the book: four pages at the very end are completely blank. There was no reason for it. Dracula’s Guest should have been at the front of the book and placed where it clearly belongs, which is before what is mistakenly presumed to have been Chapter One. Dracula’s Guest is actually Chapter One. If it had been placed there, the story would have made more sense and flowed better. On page 566, there is an inaccuracy. The film, Love At First Bite is mentioned scantily. The character played by Susan Saint James in the film was not an actress. She was a model who occasionally did commercials selling various products. Dog food and mouthwash were commercials she mentioned in the film. The ending of the book is not shockingly different. There is nothing remarkable about the book, with the exception of it being bloated with far too many pages, causing it to be difficult to lift due to excessive weight. The price was also ridiculously inflated.

If you like going down informational tangents based on this novel, this book is for you! Thanks Leslie!

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.

Incredibly well annotated. I haven't yet read the appendices, but I'm sure that they will be the same.

One of my absolute favorite books to have around.

My only issue is that I had hoped it would include Dracula's Guest. But it is an excellently put together annotated version of Dracula. My favorite version so far.

Great book!

I bought this book because of the annotation! I have read Bram Stoker's Dracula before (several times). The annotation greatly enhanced my understanding of the actual geographical/historical/cultural aspects of the book. Stoker went to considerable effort to render everything correctly (including train timetables in Romania at the time of the tale). Also, the information about vampires correctly mirrors the folk lore of Romania. Thus we see that Dracula, by Stoker, was in fact a very, very true story. There are also references to the historical Dracula -ie - a Romanian fighter of the Turks who lived in the 15th century. Whether his name was Dracula, or even whether in Stoker he was a composite figure, is open to question as indicated by the annotator. Except for the folk lore that says that vampires live for hundreds of years, unless stake is driven through the heart and the head cut off, Stoker's Dracula is a very accurate study of history and culture. You would probably not know this without the aid of such an annotated version.

The annotated version of dracula is so comprehensive. It provided lots of background and information on a classic tale. If you are new to dracula I think it would be better to read the story on its own first. This is an exhaustive exploration. Fascinating reading if you want the background behind this classic. Since I was already very familiar with the story, I enjoyed flipping this open periodically and reading the annotations along with the story.

I'm staggered by the research it must have taken to present the pages of Victorian minutia that accompany Stoker's florid tale of horror. What great fun...I've pretty much skipped reading the book for the nth time to concentrate solely on the footnotes. That said, I did find the "gentle fiction" of pretending that DRACULA was based on real events more annoying than I expected. But this is a must-have read for any fan of the novel. Enjoy!

Bram Stoker's Dracula is one of the most famous books ever written, and this volume carries invaluable insight into the world of Dracula and vampires. For example: Did you know that staking a vampire just immobilizes it? This is a must have for every vampire fan.

Bought this as a gift for a good friend who has been wanting it and she loves it.

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.

Reallly nice book...terrific annotations too.

As others have mentioned, the Kindle version is NOT the annotated book by Leslie S. Klinger, despite listing him as one of the authors. It seems to have part of his introduction and character descriptions, but that's it. There are no actual annotations or supplemental information to be found. Typos abound as well.

I, for one, really enjoy the in depth annotations and find they add to my enjoyment of the novel. I’ve read Dracula nearly a dozen times and discovered an added richness from the notes. I became a fan of Klinger’s work after reading his Sherlock Holmes and wasn’t let down here. My only complaint is I wish the editor or publisher would have made the annotations a different color or font from the story, as they get a little mixed as you’re reading through.

The best Dracula to buy. I have given copies of this annotated version to friends. It is very detailed and very well-researched.

This was my favorite book whenn i ws younger and still read it when I have the time..This a good work and needs to be in any home who Dracula.A+.

"The game of Dracula is afoot!" This may the sound like cover copy for yet another "Sherlock Holmes meets Dracula" pastiche, but instead it's on the back cover of Leslie Klinger's New Annotated Dracula. The reason it appears there is that Klinger, also responsible for the recent, well-reviewed New Annotated Sherlock Holmes in three volumes, has extended the Sherlockian game to Bram Stoker's famous vampire novel, indulging the "gentle fiction" that the novel is Stoker's modified version of real historical documents. That he has done so is, if I may be forgiven a perhaps inapt computers metaphor, simultaneously a bug and a feature. As Klinger notes, there have been several previous annotated versions of Dracula. I can't help but feel that part of the reason he has introduced the Sherlockian game for his edition is to give it a new "hook," something that sets it apart from previous versions. This is all well and good. Unfortunately, there's another "hook" for this edition, and it bumps up against the use of the Sherlockian game in ways that demonstrate some of the limits of applying this device to Dracula. Klinger was able, as no previous scholar has been, to examine a manuscript version of Dracula (it is evidently such a patchwork of different materials that it's hard to tell how far along in the process this version was produced, but it's later rather than earlier), and his annotations record variations between this manuscript and the final printed volume. Joan Acocella's dismissive comments in her oddly grumpy New Yorker review notwithstanding, some of them are rather interesting. Now, of course the historical Bram Stoker (or someone else) made these alterations for various reasons, which would be interesting to speculate on. Unfortunately, the way Klinger plays his game means that Stoker's actual role in the authorship of the novel has to be ignored, and so these variations, when analyzed at all, are discussed in terms of how the "real" Van Helsing might have wanted some detail changed, and so on. This is good fun up to a point, although at times Klinger strains to imbue these alterations with more meaning than they seem to possess. But it's rather disappointing that the first substantive treatment of the manuscript is chained to this game, which blunts its impact. Indeed, it's not hard to feel disappointed that Klinger couldn't break out of his game mode once in a while and include occasional discussion of the writing process of the actual novel. In addition to the manuscript, there are some notes on the novel's early development, and a later abridged text of the novel that may well have been prepared by Stoker himself. Klinger dutifully notes variations among these phases, and just as dutifully treats all this material as factual. When a character from the notes doesn't make it to the novel, it's not because Stoker decided he didn't need her, but because her involvement was "suppressed." This is charming, but a little of it goes a long way, and I would have liked to see more treatment of the actual background of Stoker's writing of Dracula. Other aspects of Klinger's game of Dracula are more fun. There are so many holes in the narrative logic of Dracula that a more sober style of annotation would just have been depressing: you might start to wonder whether Stoker was actually all that talented. But when Klinger turns every changed premise or erroneous date into a sign of a cover-up, it's a more enjoyable experience altogether. At times he does seem to be straining to question aspects of the protagonists' story, or to find an excuse to call them shallow, cold, arrogant, or the like, but it's all part of the game. But back to that tagline. It underlines the fact that is a device from Sherlock Holmes scholarship. When Klinger played this game in the New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, there was a lot of precedent for it, and therefore a lot of other material he could refer to. Dracula has not often been so discussed (though of course any detailed examination of a work of fiction's narrative logic implicitly treats its as being real), and the artificiality of the device shines through more. I wouldn't call it a failure, but it's not as much of a success as I had hoped. If I've been so down on the book thus far, why have I given it five stars? Because, even with these quibbles, it's a gorgeous, delightful edition of the novel that anyone interested in the history of vampire fiction ought to own. Even setting aside the "Draculaic game" annotations, there's a wealth of information on the late Victorian context of the novel: historical, social, geographical, and otherwise. There's rather a lot about train stations, which seems excessive even in light of the importance of modernity to the book's narrative, but the level of detail is enjoyable even when the specific information is not. There's a great deal to be learned from this edition of Dracula, and an extensive bibliography points readers in the direction of more information if they desire it. In light of all this, I can't really complain about wanting more on my own preferred topics. And finally, there's the novel itself. Whatever its flaws of narrative logic, Dracula is an elegantly-structured, endlessly fascinating horror tale; the first half in particular builds in a wonderfully subtle manner, as the readers draws connections not obvious to the authors of the various documents. The second half is a bit long, and the soppy-stern (thank you, Philip Larkin) sentimentality wears a bit, but the novel remains compelling. I read it in a day, and then went back to start on the annotations. The game of Dracula was indeed, well, you know...

So much trivia and information inside! And while I had to return the first book because the jacket was badly torn, the return/exchange process was so easy and quick! Happy with my purchase. :)

Just a short review to say I was so impressed with this beautifully presented edition of this book that I ordered a 2nd copy from Amazon as a gift for a friend who was equally impressed by it. Very informative annotations with sometimes justly critical ones too, this lushly illustrated edition is a must. And Hey if the great Neil Gaiman gave it the thumbs up by writing a forward for it...well that says it all.

Read the reviews too late, unfortunately. They're 100% right, this is NOT the annotated edition, at all!

The annotated version of this book offered background information and an added understanding of the story. The hardcover is very nice. Very well done book.

Hard to find thc classic ! Had to have for my library!!

From the back flap: "[N]o one has hertofore played the 'Sherlockian game,' accepting Bram Stoker's declaration that the work was based on historical fact." Klinger didn't consider that this may be for good reason. In his own words, the editor "generally avoid[s] discussion of the subtexts of the work", instead taking up pages guessing at train times, dates, and locations where fictitious events "occurred", or examining the plausibility of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" episodes. After 15 pages of the text (37 with annotations) it's back on the shelf to stay.

This isn't quite "CSI:Transylvania" but it's a forensic jigsaw par excellence. It isn't quite "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" but it brings the period and circumstances surrounding the Count and his adversaries and victims to life in a peculiar, compelling way. It helps that I had previously read Stoker's novel, it is VERY EASY to get so sidetracked in the lovely minutiae that one may never find the way back. This is a nice cross between a fantasy world and the real one: informative, entertaining, and visually captivating. But don't expect to sit down and breeze through it: it will require that you devote your attention to it to get the most pleasure out of it.

I really enjoyed this edition with Mr Gaiman's forward. I love the easy to read style. Very glad I purchased it.

Pages are thin

I applauded the burden of wading through all the journal entries from the original work and having commentary running right along side. It is a glance inside a glance of the true Dracula. If you think about it, there have been so many iterations that the bold production of this book is a breath of fresh air between well-aged paper that came before. How many more times must we be subjected to possibly the greatest horror icon? I think the hard part is thinking up a unique way to spin the story. Oh, and it's a pretty book, too. So great effort there. But the purest in me has got to say that this book was a great concept, but poorly executed. I would never consider this book to be a proper literary work. It flounders, abounding greatly, and I can understand but if not to agree with the presentation of both the literature and the 'annotations'. If they had trimmed down the commentary, it would have been such an easier read. I give the author kudos for the effort; at the end of the day, it is a great addition to vampire lore library.

This book is so rich with insights, information, and background facts about Dracula, his life & times... well, it looks like years & years of work to assemble. If you'd like to know more about Dracula's world and his background, you couldn't ask for a better, more complete book than this one. I was only a so-so Dracula fan before I bought this book. Now, I'm fascinated by the story, Bram Stoker, and the reality he created with this tale.

This book's annotations seem very thorough so far, but the editor, Leslie Klinger, has chosen to insert his own "cleverness" into the story in an annoying way: He operates under the conceit that Dracula actually existed, that the Count himself pressured Stoker to assemble the novel in a certain way. This brings a confusing and irritating extra layer of meaning into the annotations. Simple clarity would have been better.

Its a nice book but came super water damaged and moldy

"Dracula" had long been on my to-read list. Although vampire fiction existed before "Dracula", Stoker's novel is the one that most subsequent vampire fiction builds upon. I've encountered enough of the elements of "Dracula" in other vampire fiction, and I had built up a basic outline of the story based on what I have read and seen elsewhere. It was time to read the book. Last year, I read an annotated "Alice in Wonderland" that helped me understand the context for that novel. I appreciated the greater depth of understanding that the annotations gave that novel, and so chose this version of "Dracula". It was a mistake. The mistake became obvious in the frontmatter, in which the editor tells us of his conceit: he treats the events of the book as if they are real, and that some of the details were obfuscated by Stoker in an attempt to suppress the real story. As a result, you can consider the annotations to fall into two broad categories: the ones that help explain words, references, people, or other items that were unique to Victorian England, and the obnoxious ones that try to take a novel and turn it into series of journal entries that a heavy-handed editor tried to change to suppress that a vampire came to London in the late 1800s. There are annotations that attempt to determine the year in which the events of "Dracula" occurred (and an appendix as well), which add nothing to the text. There are annotations about the difference between the manuscript, Stoker's notes, the first edition of the book, and the second edition of the book, which include the editor's musings about Stoker's attempts to suppress evidence. These are interesting in that you can see the author's work to make his story a better and tighter one, and the snotty annotations remove the hard work of writing a book and turn it into something cheap and tawdry. There are annotations which question the actions of the characters, which took away from my enjoyment of trying to string together disparate journal entries and the actions detailed in them. Worst, though, are the annotations which explicitly detail every single upcoming plot point. This book made it impossible to enjoy the narrative. There are annotations everywhere, and sometimes they're the useful sort, but mostly they're the obnoxious sort. There are many pages that just contain annotations, and you can rest assured that the long annotations are not the useful annotations. The novel "Dracula" gets lost in "The New Annotated Dracula", and the editor appears not to like the novel so much as proving that he knows everything about the novel and about other vampire fiction ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer" comes up frequently in the annotations). It's hard to form your own opinion about any of the characters and their motivations when the annotations are constantly telling you what that character will do, or questioning why a character made that choice, or telling you what is coming next in the narrative. When everything is detailed, it's hard to get excited or interested in the narrative. It's like sitting next to someone at the cinema who has seen the film before and insists on telling you what's next instead of letting you find it out yourself. The back matter seems to be there only to pad out the book. Their quality is low, and they add so little to an understanding of either "Dracula" or its place in literature that it is hard to understand why they were include. There is a lightweight discussion of academic readings of "Dracula", some discussion of other versions of it, and some discussion about subsequent vampire fiction and how closely it is related to "Dracula" (implicitly or explicitly). The best thing about this version of the book is that it is handsomely printed and bound. It will look nice on my shelf, which is probably good because it's never coming off of my shelf again.

Lots of interesting detail and historical perspective. A must-have for any serious collector of Bram Stoker's works. A great resource on the king of the vampires. I used it as research to write my novel, "Stoker's Wilde.".

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.

m.n/.,/.

I cannot and will not recommend any annotated edition of a literary work when the author ruins excellent scholarship by adding nothing more than a pack of lies. Such "gentle fiction" destroys the author's credibility and appalls most everyone who reads this nonsense. The author deserves a swift bite in the neck for ruining what ought to have been a brilliant edition.

This annotated "Dracula" is filled with fascinating information. My advice is that people should use this book and its explanations when they want to read the classic because they will see and understand the book better by doing so. There is just one thing that I disliked about the annotations, a very minor point. The annotator decided to treat the book as a true history and as a result derived some conclusions that are not relevant to the story. An example is that he felt the writer tried to hide some things, such as the true identity of Van Helsing, who was not one person but many. One can ignore this or go along with the annotator’s "joke" Otherwise, the additions by Leslie Klinger are very interesting and enlightening. Beside hundreds of explanations placed on the side of the "Dracula" text, Klinger gives us an extensive introduction, many pictures, tells us about the 1924 play based on the novel, movies made based on the novel before 1931, a second version of the novel – a Spanish film also by Universal also made in 1931 that is different than the English version, many examples of conflicts in the Dracula tale where the text states one thing in one place and something different in another, examples of unscientific statements, illogical events such as why did Dracula kill all the sailors on the ship that brought him to England, why did Dracula only take blood from women – is the taking of blood a sexual event as some scholars claim, and very much more.

I got this for christmas and is my second Annotated Dracula book (I sold the other one, by Leonard Wolf, after reading this one). By far this is the best annotated take to Stoker's novel. It posits the possibility that Dracula indeed existed and that Stoker is in collusion with the Count against Harker, et al. I found this great article on the New Yorker, which I think summarizes this incredible edition perfectly: "Leslie Klinger, in his new annotated edition, claims that he has fresh material to go on. He has examined Stoker's typescript, which is owned by a "private collector." This source, he says, has yielded "startling results." In fact, like McNally and Florescu with Stoker's working notes, Klinger draws no important conclusions from his archival discovery, and he admits that he spent only two days studying the typescript. As with the McNally-Florescu version, however, the real sales angle of this edition is not a new source but a new theory. Klinger not only assumes, like Leatherdale, that all the events narrated in the novel are factual; he offers a hypothesis as to how Stoker came to publish them. Here goes. Harker, a real person (with a changed name), like everyone else in the book, gave his diary, together with the other documents that constitute the novel, to Bram Stoker so that Stoker might alert the English public that a vampire named Dracula, also real, was in their midst. Stoker agreed to issue the warning. But then Dracula got wind of this plan, whereupon he contacted Stoker and used on him the methods of persuasion famously at his disposal. Dracula decided that it was too late to suppress the Harker documents entirely, so instead he forced Stoker to distort them. He sat at the desk with Stoker and co-authored the novel, changing the facts in such a way as to convince the public that Dracula had been eliminated. That way, the Count could go on, unmolested, with his project of taking over the world. Many of Klinger's fifteen hundred notes are devoted to revealing this plot. When Stoker makes a continuity error, or fails to supply verifiable information, this is part of the coverup. The book says that Dracula's London house is at 347 Piccadilly, but in the eighteen-nineties the only houses on that stretch of Piccadilly that would have answered Stoker's description were at 138 and 139. Clearly, Klinger says, Stoker is protecting the Count. Then, there's a problem about the hotel where Van Helsing is staying. In Chapter 9 it's the Great Eastern; in Chapter 11 it's the Berkeley. Again, Klinger concludes, Stoker is covering his characters' traces. He altered the name of the hotel--presumably, he had to prevent readers from running over to the place and checking the register--but then he forgot and changed the name again. At first, you think that maybe Klinger's book is not actually an annotated edition of "Dracula" but, rather, like Nabokov's "Pale Fire," a novel about a paranoid, in the form of an annotated edition. But no: Klinger, in his introduction, lays out his conspiracy theory without qualification. So are we to understand that he himself is a maniac, whose delusions the editors at Norton thought it might be interesting to publish? No again. Preceding Klinger's introduction there is a little note, titled "Editor's Preface"--exactly the kind of thing that readers would skip--in which he tells us that his great hypothesis is a "gentle fiction." (He used a similar contrivance, he says, in his Sherlock Holmes edition.) Recently, in a book-tour appearance at the New York Public Library, Klinger again admitted that his theory was a game. "If you like that sort of thing, there's a lot of that in there," he said. April fool! That's too bad, first, because it means that a serious novel has been taken as a species of camp, and, second, because it discredits Klinger's non-joke, scholarly footnotes, of which there are many, and carefully researched. Even after the other annotated editions, this volume gives us useful information. Maybe we didn't need to be told what Dover is, or the Bosporus, but when Klinger writes about the rise of the New Woman, or about the popularity of spiritualism in the late nineteenth century, this gives us knowledge that Victorian readers would have brought to the novel, and which could help us. It won't, though, because readers, having had their chain pulled by the conspiracy theory, will disregard those notes, if, improbably, they have bought the book. Every generation, it seems, gets the annotated "Dracula" that it deserves. This is the postmodern version: playful, "performative," with a smiling disdain for any claim of truth. It found the perfect author. A tax attorney would know about gentle fictions." -In the Blood Why do vampires still thrill?, New Yorker. by Joan Acocella March 16, 2009

I was smart enough to first order a sample to my phone on the kindle app. When I checked it out this turned out NOT TO BE the New Annotated Dracula by Klinger. I dont know why the kindle version of the Klinger connects to this link which turns out to be an edition of Dracula that has NO annotations whatsoever and is poorly laid out. Without the annotations this is simply yet another of the many cheap versions of Dracula that are around and you can get many that are better than this version. Amazon needs to be made aware of this linkage problem because they could be guilty of consumer fraud and I'm sure that is not what they want.

The notes in this massive book are very helpful in understanding references that could be obscure to modern-day readers who live over a century after Stoker wrote his masterpiece. But for heaven's sake, the premise that these characters really existed gets old very quickly! I would eagerly look for a footnote to increase my understanding of the text, only to find more speculation along the lines of "this shows that the journal entry was edited to keep the true identity of _____ from being revealed" or some such nonsense. I ended up ordering Leonard Wolf's "The Annotated Dracula" to compare, and even though there were much fewer footnotes, at least I didn't have to deal with the charade that "Dracula" was a work of non-fiction! This book is a must-have for the aficionado, as long as you can look past a lot of the footnotes which try to reinforce Klinger's imaginative ideas. If he truly believed that the Count, Mina, Jonathan and the others really existed, that would be one thing--but the fact that he indulges in this for purely entertainment value is what bothered me. It would have been a great edition of this classic, no question, without him focusing on this angle, so I'm not sure why he decided to present the book in this way. But when it's all said and done, there is enough excellent content in this book to warrant a 5-star rating, just be forewarned.

"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.

As stated by others, the kindle edition is not annotated at all. It's just the basic copy you could get for free on Project Gutenberg. I want a refund!

The origin of the term vampire is somewhat clouded in mystery just like the creature itself. During the 19th century vampires were looked at with fear and were regarded as monstrous as your basic dead person risen from the grave. To stop the monstrous doings of this fanged creature a stake must be driven through the corpse or the head cut off or the heart torn out and the body burned which ever they all seem rather excessive but that was the only way to rid ones city or town of this mysterious creature that roamed the night stalking people. In 1897, Bram Stoker published Dracula, the classic tale of the powerful, hypnotic Transylvanian vampire-noble who travels to England to prey on an unsuspecting public. In the book, Dracula is described as a tall old man with protruding teeth, hairy palms and foul breath - not the image fondly remembered today. This was however the beginning of a fascination with vampires that has lasted for 2oo years, in which their shape had shifted to a modern vampire which more often or not,is a seductively attractive figure. Whilst Dracula has remained in print since its first appearance in 1897 in which the iconic vampire gained its popularity of power from the films in which it was shown and an early critic once said of Dracula that a summary of the book would "shock and disgust. Yet Klinger brings an impressive breadth of knowledge of information to this definitive examination of one of the classic horror characters of all time. The New Annotated Dracula has more than 1500 notes, which is thorough and explains in detail almost step by step the voyage of Bram Stokers Vampire. Klinger pays homage to Bram Stokers Dracula with a daring conceit he accepts Stokers contention that the Dracula tale is based on historical fact. He travels through 200 years of pop, culture and myth as well as going into graveyards from Transylvania in which Klingers opens every aspect of this haunting narrative to illuminate our passage into an understanding and appreciation of the writings of Stoker. Klinger also investigates the many subtexts of the original narrative employing the superb literary skills he has acquired that even the most buffhard Dracula fans will be impressed with in his writing and has brought together a new generation of followers in readers. Packed full of color and black and white photography, this book is a must have companion for any horror buff,s in which it was taken from the original manuscript and novel.

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.

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.

Last year I decided that it was about time I read Dracula. I had seen Leslie Klinger's The New Annotated Dracula and knew this was the version that I had to own. It was not before long that I realized this was the wrong version for my first time Dracula read. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE all of the information but the annotations were so lengthy and drew me in (cue: me flipping through the pages to read a note that was referenced 3 chapters earlier) it was going to take me 3 times as long to get through the book. I finally had to ignore most of the notes, knowing that I would be able to read them later. My favorite part of the book would have to be the beginning, when Jonathan is at Dracula's castle. The descriptions are great, with just enough creepiness to get my heart pumping. I am ashamed to say that I was totally in the dark about how the book ended. I did not know what happened to Dracula, I actually thought the exact opposite happened. It was a surprising revelation as well as a fun one. It is nice (and a bit pathetic) to be surprised by the end of a classic. I found it interesting that Dracula's connection with Mina reminded me of Voldemort and Harry Potter. The marks on the forehead and the mental connections that they had were similar enough that I began to wonder if J.K. Rowling had any inspiration from Dracula while writing HP. I am so glad I can finally say that I have read Dracula. It was an interesting story that I waited way too long to finally read. Now that I have finished, I am excited the next Halloween I will dive in again. I wonder what kind of details I missed the first time around.

Just as he ruined his Sherlock Holmes annotations by the supposition that Holmes and Watson were real people, and Arthur Conan Doyle merely the collator of Watson's papers, Klinger rolled up his sleeves and ruined his annotation of "Dracula" by the asinine, ridiculous and embarrassingly stupid supposition that Dracula and the cast of characters in the book were real people, and Stoker acquired the "Harker papers." Thus we must read sentences that are total wastes of time, such as this one: "When and where [Stoker] met the 'Harkers' is unknown." Well, OF COURSE, it is! This attitude reminds me of directors who put on Shakespeare, and, for instance, set "Macbeth" in the American Old West or "Romeo and Juliet" in a 1970s discotheque. Because, you see, that way, as you watch the play, you're not thinking of Shakespeare as much as you're thinking about the director. So the annotations are more about Klinger's silly little game, which I didn't want to play, than they are about Stoker and "Dracula." It's also difficult to know if an annotation is commenting on something real, or if it's one of his "gentle fictions." But wait! There's more! He thinks ALL fiction is taken from reality. For instance: He quotes something Eliza Doolittle said in Shaw's "Pygmalion," and says it's "attributed to Eliza Doolittle," as if the events in "Pygmalion" actually happened, and maybe Shaw fictionalized some of it. The nadir is reached when he says Tolkien did the same thing with "The Lord of the Rings." This is taking a joke which isn't very funny in the first place and running it way into the ground. Maybe someday someone will really write a decent annotation of "Dracula." It hasn't happened yet. The one by Leonard Wolf was full of errors and offbase observations.

If you want to read a new released YA fantasy adventure trilogy novel check out Crepuscular Light In The Night. It's the first one in the series and it has all the right ingredients you want for a page-turning book with new creatures you've never heard about before. Dragon Vampires have been with oss longer than Vampires have and the werewolfs have known about their secret for a long time. Now it's time to hear their story. Ones you start reading you will be hooked. Love, adventure, family, friendship and betrayal will leave you wanting more. Crepuscular Light In The Night

To much inecesary information, but interesting... a good explanation and back ground of the history of dracula, all the events thad make this character uno of the best (or the best) fictional horror character, you don't need to know more, simpy amazing.

This is a marvelous collection. I primarily choose to write a review because the comments on this page about the Kindle version are, as a matter of fact, only referencing Dracula's guest. When you hit the Kindle Choice, it takes you to the free Dracula's guest short story or prequel. That is far different than this much larger, beautifully published version.

This is a lovely addition to my “annotated classics” collection. However, I find the annotations to be a let down. Rather than vampire lore or cultural and historical influences on Stoker’s creation, the reader is left with a deluge of information on train time tables and weather reports. There are so many juicy opportunities missed here.

You are plenty smart enough to follow the action in Dracula without all the marginalia. You certainly don't need the story within a story distraction of an editor who creates a fictional "real" backstory to sift through. Dracula is written as a series of journal entries, letters and telegrams. Each entry is written as first person from the diarist. So each entry builds on the next. At times, the reader is as much in the dark as the characters, but in others, you can anticipate what they have not yet seen. But if you can follow the plot of a movie with flashbacks and changes in point of view, you can follow the story here. Go for a decent copy of just the novel (although you will want one that includes the prequel chapter Dracula's Guest). You'll have enough left over for several lattes to savor along with your reading.

More than you ever needed to know but everything you wanted to know about the creature that shrieks in the night.

my husband was thrilled to receive this book as a christmas gift. saw it in local bookstore chains for a lot more money. the book is in excellent condition, too.

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.

Klinger's Annotated Dracula is a must have for any fan of Dracula. It is full of information on Victorian England, Eastern Europe, literature, the characters, and everything in between. The book includes some high quality black and white pictures as well as color pictures. Well done Mr. Klinger!

Quite a bit of fun learning all the history around the Dracula story. Beautiful edition.

was bought as a gift. chose this over the other versions b/c it delved into historical facts and had lotsa pics and interesting trivia type stuff. the recepient seemed genuinely pleased.

If you can't create excellence yourself, parasitize off those who have done. That's what the editor/contributor of this Norton edition has done. Shame on Norton for publishing Klinger's trash. Advice to the publisher. Don't be so damn camp and treat good literature with more respect.

Well made, good annotations, and very attractive. Great for a teenager.

I got a good deal

Les recomiendo este sensacional libro a todos los amantes de la literatura gótica y vampírica. Esta obra es sensacional aunque tiene sus imprecisiones debido a que el autor ha querido darle un tenor de ficción a su misma obra. Fuera de ello, todos los datos que proporciona sobre la influencia que la obra ha tenido a lo largo de más de 100 años de historia de la literatura es genial.