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Post by dem on Jan 11, 2021 18:25:05 GMT
While my first impression of this pseudo Dracula for YA (?) was a heartfelt "really?", on the second view I liked the cover. "You can't be serious, get lost", this Dracula seems to say. Well done by Angus McBride. They're attractive books, full colour illustations throughout. Angus McBride makes a very good job of illustrating Raymond Sibley's The Mummy, too. Ladybird Books |
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Post by andydecker on Feb 10, 2021 9:41:28 GMT
As I couldn't resist after Middoth posted this German edition of Dracula, I got hold of a copy.
Bram Stoker - Dracula Ein Vampir-Roman (A vampire novel) (Verlag Das Neue Berlin 1989 - German Democratic Republic)
To my surprise this hardcover had a lot of illustrations done by the cover artist, a man called Volker Pfüller. Born in 1939 he died last year and was an accomplished artist and university teacher, worked for the stage and did costumes. While I am more of a fan of "realistic" art or moody gothic pieces, I have to say that I liked these illustrations a lot. They have an very individual style. Pfüller did effortlessly pick the iconic moments of the novel. I am not sold on the more naive art as in the full colour plates like "Dracula's brides" here, but that is a matter of taste.   
This was produced shortly before the wall came down. The afterword is an overview of the vampire-myth, Stoker and his novel and the vampire-movie. I am not sure a lot of them were screened behind the iron curtain, but most the GDR watched western televison, so I guess there was a familarity.
On the whole this is a wonderful edition with strong artwork.
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Post by dem on Feb 10, 2021 10:16:33 GMT
These are lovely, Andy. I particularly like Dracula crawling down the wall and the staking of Lucy. Did Volker Pfüller do much work for the Vampir-Roman's or was this a one off?
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Post by andydecker on Feb 10, 2021 11:20:09 GMT
These are lovely, Andy. I particularly like Dracula crawling down the wall and the staking of Lucy. Did Volker Pfüller do much work for the Vampir-Roman's or was this a one off? I guess this is a one off. The publisher was one of the biggest genre distributors of the GDR, he also published original Science Fiction, crime novels and classics.
Seems that Pfüller did some other work for them, regardless of the genre. The artist also did a lot of YA, as I discovered in second hand listings. But mostly he seems to be famous - or at least was famous - for his work on theatre posters. There are at least two art books with this. To my surprise I discovered that this East-German publisher also did a original anthology of classic vampire stories. It was called "The Vampire - Ghost Stories". It has an interesting line-up if you compare it with, say, Haining. Alexej Tolstoi - The Family of a Vourdalak
Washington Irving - The Grandprior of Minorca Prosper Mérimée - The Venus of Ille
E.A. Poe - Masque of the Red Death
Honoré de Balzac - Der Staatsanwalt (The Attorney??) Jan Neruda - The Vampire
Fjodor Dostojewski - Bobok
Iwan Turgenjew - The Dog
Oscar Wilde - The Canterbury Ghost
Guy de Maupassant - Who knows?
Robert Louis Stevenson - Thrawn Janet
Mark Twain - A Ghost Story
I don't know when this was published, a third edition is from 1986. The selection is a bit of the safe side. Nothing post 1900.
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Post by Dr Strange on Feb 12, 2021 0:18:09 GMT
For some reason or other, I am quite fond of this one (1993) -  Here's the original, La Femme Chauve-Souris ("Bat Woman") by Albert Joseph Pénot (c.1890) -  |
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Post by andydecker on Feb 12, 2021 8:48:51 GMT
For some reason or other, I am quite fond of this one (1993) - Here's the original, La Femme Chauve-Souris ("Bat Woman") by Albert Joseph Pénot (c.1890) - This is nice one! |
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Post by andydecker on Feb 12, 2021 9:07:04 GMT
Here is another one. It is a new translation from 2012, the fourth or fifth, which is just a guess, this is the paperback edition. It comes with annotations - 532, to be exact - and a afterword. I won't bore you with the details. The most interesting, i.e. new for me because I didn't stumble upon it before, is the idea that Stoker borrowed a lot from Montpassaunt's Le Horla which is supposedly also written as a diary.
I can understand the idea behind the cover, but I am not convinced. One could say this is dead Lucy, which is nicely morbid. But you have to know the novel fairly well to come to this conclusion, it could also be sleeping random Victorian girl. Unfortunatly the origin of the picture is not credited, just the agency who supplied it. |
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Post by andydecker on Oct 10, 2021 12:47:43 GMT
And another one. This is the 6th edition from 2004.
It is a bland cover, but I guess it is okay compared to some newer ones. Someone should do a Dracula cover book. As the text has been so often revised over time there would even be enough material for the text.
As I discovered this week, Bram Stoker is now the proud member of a literary sub-genre called Gaslamp fantasy. No, really, Wikipedia says so. Conan Doyle and Jules Verne are other examples.  |
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Post by andydecker on Dec 2, 2021 18:33:37 GMT
AbeBooks published its list of the biggest sales they had in the year.
No. 7 is a first edition of Dracula which sold for 23.950 €. Not bad.
No. 10 is a copy of Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, here the 7th edition from 1931 with an inscription by the writer for Ben Lyon and Bebe Daniels. It sold for 21.775 €.
No.1 is Pencil Sketches of Montana by A.E. Mathews, a rare book from 1868, sold for 32.650 €.
No De Vermis Mysteriis and no Liber Ivonis though. Seems they don't sell anymore. I blame the internet.
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Post by helrunar on Dec 2, 2021 19:05:16 GMT
Hilarious, Andreas! Our beloved classics of yore just don't get much credit from today's well-heeled youngsters. They're all spoiled brats!
cheers, Steve
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