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Dracula
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Bound in blood-red leather and lavishly illustrated, this new edition of Dracula, limited to just 750 hand-numbered copies each signed by Angela Barrett, is a fitting tribute to a gothic masterpiece.
Dracula
There can be few novels as influential as Bram Stoker’s much-adapted vampire tale. For this, the ultimate collector’s edition, artist Angela Barrett has produced 15 intensely atmospheric colour plates, a set of elaborate hand-drawn borders, nine black-and-white tailpieces, and a pair of striking designs on the venous red leather binding and black cloth-covered slipcase.
Production Details
Bound in red leather blocked in black and gold foils with a design by Angela Barrett
Set in Clifford
Printed on Abbey Pure Rough paper
400 pages
Frontispiece and 14 colour plates printed on Natural Evolution Ivory paper
Numerous black-and-white tailpieces
Limitation label printed in red and signed by Angela Barrett
Gilded on all three page-edges
Ribbon marker
Cloth-covered slipcase blocked in gold and cream foils with a design by Angela Barrett
10˝ x 6¾˝
The finest edition of an enduring classic
‘Listen to them – the children of the night. What music they make!’
Bram Stoker’s classic, in which the instantly recognisable Count Dracula plans to sate his dreadful appetites in England only to be thwarted by an intrepid band of friends, remains an enthralling read. Exploring themes of sexuality, religion, technology and good versus evil, and told through journal entries, letters and telegrams, its cultural and literary significance is undisputed.
The civil servant who spawned a legion of monsters
‘One of the most powerful horror tales ever written.’
- Malcolm Bradbury
Born in Dublin in 1847, Bram Stoker escaped the monotony of a career in the Irish Civil Service by accepting the job of manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London. Dracula was his fifth novel, and it was to have an impact and an enduring appeal its author could never have foreseen. Like the Count, Dracula is deathless and ever changing, reinvigorating the genre of horror literature and inspiring multiple film adaptations. The text of the first edition, scrupulously reproduced here, remains powerful, haunting, and deliciously ambiguous.
Angela Barrett summons a fresh vision of the undead classic
‘For me, the charm of the book lies in the warm comradeship of the six in their quest to defeat Dracula, without abandoning all pity for this lonely enemy. The Count's allure is potent, in spite of his scent, which fortunately doesn’t come off the page. The nineteenth is my favourite century and, as with Stoker, ‘London is my dream’, but also forests and snow and the dark corners. I couldn’t have liked it more.’
- Angela Barrett
Handpicked for her ethereal interpretations of the darker fairy tales as the perfect artist to illustrate Dracula, Angela Barrett has created remarkable work which is interwoven through this lavish limited edition. From the delicate webbing of a bat’s wing to the arresting portrait of the Count that forms the frontispiece, every detail invites the reader to look deeper. Each of the 750 hand-numbered copies has been signed by the artist.
What makes this limited edition so special
‘Of all the monsters in my closet, this is the one that scares me most, and probably always will.’
- Stephen King
Housed in a black cloth slipcase, blocked in cream and gold and with curved edges to facilitate removing the book, it is the attention to detail that makes this new limited edition such a fitting tribute to Stoker’s gothic masterpiece. From the carmine leather binding, beautifully blocked with a design by Angela Barrett featuring howling wolves, a forbidding castle, bats, garlic and a crucifix, to the red laid endpapers which perfectly set off the parchment-like limitation label, printed in red, numbered by hand and signed by the artist, every aspect has been carefully considered.
Each of the 15 intensely brooding colour plates is set within one of five intricate borders which represent the places in which the episodes illustrated take place. There are slathering wolves, and sleeping bats interwoven through sinister boughs of conifer for Transylvania; high-masted ships and the ruins of the abbey for Whitby; frail fragments of spiders’ webs, complete with spiders, for Purfleet; tall, slender townhouses for London, and threatening conifers, their malevolent roots twining round a steam launch, for the desperate race towards Dracula’s castle.
Brief descriptions do not begin to do justice to the complexity of the drawings; the borders alone more than repay contemplation and the colour plates too are incredibly complex and uncommonly disturbing. Barrett has gone back to the novel and each image is faithful in every detail to Stoker’s descriptions. Count Dracula may have outgrown the book to become the quintessential vampire, but the frontispiece portrait of him shows the aquiline nose, arched nostrils and massive eyebrows envisaged by the author to perfection, it also includes the nails ‘long and fine, and cut to a sharp point’.
Then there are the nine different black-and-white tailpieces, some like the bat and the crucifix are repeated and others, such as the terrified horses surrounded by baying wolves that ends the first chapter, are specific to a particular scene.
All three page edges are gilded and there is a black ribbon marker for this is, above all, a book to read, the ultimate gothic horror story in the ultimate collector’s edition.
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