Dracula

Penguin Classics

By: Bram Stoker

Narrated by: Mark Gatiss

Length: 17 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

This Penguin Classic is narrated by Mark Gatiss, who also wrote the screen play for the critically acclaimed BBC adaptation. Gatiss has also had an extensive acting career including roles in Sherlock, which he wrote alongside Steven Moffat, The League of Gentlemen and Wolf Hall.

When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes a series of horrific discoveries about his client. Soon afterwards, various bizarre incidents unfold in England: an apparently unmanned shipis wrecked off the coast of Whitby; a young woman discovers strange puncture marks on her neck; and the inmate of a lunatic asylum raves about the 'Master' and his imminent arrival. In Dracula, Bram Stoker created one of the great masterpieces of the horror genre, brilliantly evoking a nightmare world of vampires and vampire hunters and also illuminating the dark corners of Victorian sexuality and desire.

Public Domain (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Epic fight against evil to save souls

The ‘evasive knowing’ writing style is brilliant and so spooky. Much better than expected and narration is excellent. Introduction is terrible, skip it.

Great narration. Gothic literature.

I’m not a fan of horror stories but this narrator made it so enjoyable I had to keep up the listening. He lent much humor to the whole experience. I’m happy I finally got around to this novel and it’s thanks to Mr. Gatiss that I finished it. Well done!

Bram Stoker was a genius in this book holds up to any author then or now

the book and the narration is absolutely amazing however the introduction is pure rubbish.

A story worthy of the legacy

Vampire fiction is what is is today because of this book, and it absolutely holds up today. An excellent read, an excellent tale, and an awful foreword. I could not give two flying feathers for what some random dude thinks about the author's sexuality or preferences. Why this is in the narration at all baffles me, and I'm certainly glad they stuck it at the end so it wouldn't mar my enjoyment of the actual story.

Wonderful Classic with Excellent reading

It's a great classic and the reading, with the acting in the voices and their accents, is wonderful. I enjoyed it very much.

You see why it's a classic! Skip the "analysis"!

I was eager to hear a performance of the original version of this well-known tale, and this didn't disappoint. I had hoped that the real book would be much more complex than the terrible movies, or the hormone-soaked pre-teen novels that it inspired, and you can imagine how happy I was that the book really lived up to its reputation.

Students who've been assigned this read for a class beware...the movies and derivative works will not help you, for what happens in this story is quite different from what you'll expect. This is no romance novel, nor is it sensual erotica, or even particularly gory horror by today's standards. This, reader, is an adventure story, and a detective story! And it's one of the highest caliber.

The true story, the one written by Bram Stoker, is exciting, thoughtful, and worthy of the praise it gets. Sadly, someone at the publisher decided to tack on an "analysis" essay (though it's titled as an introduction), and the audiobook producers deemed this worthy of inclusion. It is thankful they placed the essay at the end of the recording rather than the beginning, for it is so trite and sophomoric that I would probably skipped the whole book after hearing it.

I feel it necessary to discount that whole essay, here and now, if only for to defend a story that I've come to love only after reading the original.

The essayist seems to want, desperately, to call this a work of erotica. In fact, they pay particular emphasis on two passages, John Harker's seduction by the vampiric women, and van Helsing's later temptation by the same. But these are small passages in a much larger novel--Harker's experience is not even a full chapter (his overall imprisonment in Castle Dracula amounts to several chapters), and van Helsing's experience is only a couple paragraphs. Yet the essay would lead us to believe that these are of profound significance--in fact, it hints this might be the whole theme of the book.

Not a word is mentioned of the bulk of the book as a cat-and-mouse chase, the innovative (at the time) use of hypnosis, the shared mind between victim and antagonist (Harry Potter fans take note...this is one of many devices used there!), the evil genius who seems one step ahead of everyone, and the lunatic as a sort of narrator-to-the-protagonists. Alas, none of these brilliant plot lines are discussed or put into context, for this essayist the story is about sexuality, homosexuality (of which there is none at all in the pages), repression, and domination. All these are topics in this "introduction" that simply do not occur in the actual story. Even the trope of the vampire as a man of infinite charm is limited to only the first meetings with Harker; after that, Dracula does not directly interact with anyone at all. Close friendship between two men does not require homosexuality; hypnosis does not mean domination; politeness, manners, and affection aren't erotica. No, it is the essayist who has a predisposition, not Stoker.

There is also considerable analysis dedicated to the subject of gender biases in the book. The essay seems to want the female characters, Mina and Lucy, to represent the stereotypical downtrodden pre-feminism victims of an oppressive society. Here again, I can't imagine the world this essayist is envisioning; it certainly isn't the one Stoker actually wrote. Both characters are lively, well-written, individuals with no over-the-top agenda to speak of. Both are intelligent, and placed well in the context of nineteenth-century european norms: as an educated woman of keen mind, and a wealthy heiress respectively. Sadly, the prose used to describe their station in life is outdated by today's standards, but they are always written with love, admiration, and respect. The essayist's attempt to characterize Lucy's joke of marrying multiple men as some sort of endorsement of polyamorous sexual relationships is simply laughable, and indicates the author didn't really read that scene fully, failed to understand it, or (more likely) put much later sub-culture ideas ahead of clear, common, norms for the era it takes place.

Finally, this "introduction" is so bad, that it seems to be about a different book altogether, perhaps Anne Rice's works, which are much more clearly sensual. The essay seems based on the idea that "Dracula" is a sort of prequel to "Interview with the Vampire", and therefore the sensuality of that book naturally comes from "Dracula". But it assuredly is not. These are different stories in content, theme, author, and historical context.

I can only hope Penguin Publishing will one day remove this misleading addition to a wonderful book.

Wonderful Book, Terrible Introduction

Outstanding.
Introduction however is terrible. It rails against Stoker's explicitly moralist intentions with modern arrogance.

Dracula: deeper understanding.

The story is so multilayered. The essay at the end give very interesting insight into the classic and era that it was born out of. Mark Gatiss is fabulous! He breathes life and pathos into every passage. I have enjoyed him in "Sherlock" "Game of Thrones" Doctor Who" but have never heard his great readings before. Bravo!

A nightmarish tale

Bram Stoker takes us on a nightmarish tale which leaves one afraid to fall asleep. From the horror of Johnathan Harker's captivity to Rinfield"s need for flies and spiders. Then the slow death of poor Lucy. if you have never fallen under the spell of Bram Stoker's story and only have seen the pale imitations of movie vampires, then you are doing yourself a disservice, and missing a story to curl your toes!

Classic and fun

Such a good listen. Such a classic story and the reader was amazing. Very well done and the voices were done well without being over done and it helped differentiate between the dialogue. Overall I would say it was very entertaining and will definitely listen again during the Halloween season this year