Stoker / Classics Delphi Complete Works of Bram Stoker

1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-908909-35-0
Verlag: Delphi Classics
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 3491 Seiten

Reihe: Series Two

Bram Stoker is a leading figure of gothic literature, having not only written 'Dracula', but also other groundbreaking horror stories, featuring Egyptian Mummies, grisly monsters and haunting encounters. This enormous eBook offers readers the unique opportunity of exploring the prolific writer's work in a manner never before possible. This is the complete FICTIONAL works of Bram Stoker, with many bonus texts for gothic lovers to explore. (Current Version: 2)
* illustrated with many images relating to Stoker's life and works
* annotated with concise introductions to the novels and other works
* ALL 12 novels - even Stoker's rare novels like THE PRIMROSE PATH and THE MYSTERY OF THE SEA - first time in digital print
* BOTH versions of the Mummy novel THE JEWEL OF SEVEN STARS - compare the original grisly ending to the revised happy ending!
* each novel has its own contents table
* images of how the novels first appeared, giving your eReader a taste of the Victorian texts
* ALL the short story collections, with rare uncollected tales
* separate chronological and alphabetical contents tables for the short stories - find that special story easily!
* EVEN includes Stoker's rare biography of Sir Henry Irving - explore their interesting lives and unique relationship
* boasts a special VAMPIRE SOURCES section, with five works examining Stoker's influences in writing DRACULA
* SPECIAL BONUS texts including the first ever vampire story in English -THE VAMPYRE by Henry Colburn
* also includes the mammoth Penny Dreadful novel that caused a sensation in Victorian times - VARNEY THE VAMPIRE BY JAMES MALCOLM RYMER
* EVEN includes CARMILLA BY JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU - the haunting female vampire novel that influenced Stoker's work
* scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres, allowing easy navigation around Stoker's immense oeuvre
Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles
The Novels
THE PRIMROSE PATH
THE SNAKE'S PASS
THE WATTER'S MOU'
THE SHOULDER OF SHASTA
DRACULA
MISS BETTY
THE MYSTERY OF THE SEA
THE JEWEL OF SEVEN STARS (1903 VERSION)
THE JEWEL OF SEVEN STARS (1912 VERSION)
THE MAN
LADY ATHLYNE
THE LADY OF THE SHROUD
THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM
The Short Story Collections
UNDER THE SUNSET
SNOW BOUND: THE RECORD OF A THEATRICAL TOURING PARTY
DRACULA'S GUEST AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES
UNCOLLECTED SHORT STORIES
The Short Stories
LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
The Vampire Sources
DER VAMPIR BY HEINRICH OSSENFELDER
THE GIAOUR BY LORD BYRON
THE VAMPYRE BY HENRY COLBURN
VARNEY THE VAMPIRE BY JAMES MALCOLM RYMER
CARMILLA BY JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU
The Biography
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF HENRY IRVING
Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles

Autoren/Hrsg.

Stoker, Bram

Classics, Delphi

Leseproben

CHAPTER 2
TO AND FRO WHEN ALL WAS made comfortable for the after sitting, the conversation grew lively. The position of persons at table tends to further cliquism, and to narrow conversation to a number of dialogues, and so the change was appreciated. The most didactic person of the company was Mr Parnell, who was also the greatest philosopher; and the idea of general conversation seemed to have struck him. He began to comment on the change in the style of conversation. ‘Look what a community of feeling does for us. Half an hour ago, when we were doing justice to Mrs O’Sullivan’s good things, all our ideas were scattered. There was, perhaps, enough of pleasant news amongst us to make some of us happy, and others of us rich, if we knew how to apply our information; but still no one got full benefit, or the opportunity of full benefit, from it.’ Here Price whispered something in Jane’s ear, which made her blush and laugh, and tell him to ‘go along.’ Parnell smiled and said gently - ‘Well, perhaps, Tom, some of the thoughts wouldn’t interest the whole of us.’ Tom grinned bashfully, and Parnell reverted to his theme. He was a great man at meetings, and liked to talk, for he knew that he talked well. ‘Have any of you ever looked how some rivers end?’ ‘What end?’ asked Mr Muldoon, and winked at Miss M’Anaspie. ‘The sea end. Look at the history of a river. It begins by a lot of little streams meeting together, and is but small at first. Then it grows wider and deeper, till big ships mayhap can sail in it, and then it goes down to the sea.’ ‘Poor thing,’ said Mr Muldoon, again winking at Margaret. ‘Ay, but how does it reach the sea? It should go, we would fancy, by a broad open mouth that would send the ships out boldly on every side and gather them in from every point. But some do not do so - the water is drawn off through a hundred little channels, where the mud lies in shoals and the sedges grow, and where no craft can pass. The river of thought should be an open river — be its craft few or many — if it is to benefit mankind.’ Miss M’Anaspie who had, whilst he was speaking, been whispering to Mr Muldoon, said, with a pertness bordering on snappishness: ‘Then, I suppose, you would never let a person talk except in company. For my part, I think two is better company than a lot.’ ‘Not at all, my dear. The river of thought can flow between two as well as amongst fifty; all I say is that all should benefit.’ Here Mr Muldoon struck in. He had all along felt it as a slight to himself that Parnell should have taken the conversational ball into his own hands. He was himself extremely dogmatic, and no more understood the difference between didacticism and dogmatism than he comprehended the meaning of that baphometic fire-baptism which set the critics of Mr Carlyle’s younger days a-thinking. ‘For my part,’ said he, ‘I consider it an impertinence for any man to think that what he says must be interesting to every one in a room.’ This was felt by all to be a home thrust at Parnell, and no one spoke. Parnell would have answered, not in anger, but in good-humoured argument, only for an imploring look on Katey’s face, which seemed to say as plainly as words - ‘Do not answer. He will be angry, and there will only be a quarrel.’ And so the subject dropped. The men mixed punch, all except Mr Muldoon, who took his whisky cold, and Parnell, who took none. The former looked at the latter with a sort of semi-sneer, and said - ‘Do you mean to say you don’t take either punch or grog?’ ‘Well,’ said Parnell, ‘I didn’t mean to say it, but now that you ask me I do say it. I never touch any kind of spirit, and, please God, I never will.’ ‘Don’t you think,’ said Muldoon, ‘that that is setting yourself above the rest of us a good deal. We’re not too good for our liquor, but you are. That’s about the long and the short of it.’ ‘No, no, my friend, I say nothing of the kind. Any man is too good for liquor.’ Jerry thought the conversation was getting entirely too argumentative, so he cut in - ‘But a little liquor needn’t be bad for a chap if he doesn’t take too much?’ ‘Ay, there it is,’ said Parnell, ‘if he doesn’t take too much. But he does take too much, and the end is that it works his ruin, body and soul.’ ‘Whose?’ It was Miss M’Anaspie who asked the question, and it fell like a bombshell. Parnell, however, was equal to the emergency. ‘Whose?’ he repeated. ‘Whose? Everyone’s who begins and doesn’t know where he may leave off.’ Miss M’Anaspie felt that she was answered, and looked appealingly at Mr Muldoon, who at once came to the rescue. ‘Everyone is a big word. Do you mean to tell me that every man that drinks a pint of beer or a glass of whisky, goes straight to the devil?’ ‘No, no; indeed I do not. God forbid that I should say any such thing. But look how many men that mean only to take one glass, are persuaded to take two, and then the wits begin to go, and they take three or four, and five, ay, and more, sometimes. Why, men and women’ - he rose from his chair as he spoke, with his face all aglow, with earnestness and belief in his words, ‘look around you and see the misery that everywhere throngs the streets. See the pale, drunken, wasted-looking men, with sunken eyes, and slouching gait. Men that were once as strong and hard-working, and upright as any here, ay, and could look you in the face as boldly as any here. Look at them now! Afraid to meet your eyes, trembling at every sound; mad with passion one moment and with despair the next.’ The tide of his thought was pouring forth with such energy that no one spoke; even Mr Muldoon was afraid at the time to interrupt him. He went on: ‘And the women, too, God help us all. Look at them and see what part drink plays in their wretched lives. Listen to the laughter and the cries that wake the echoes in the streets at night. You that have wives, and mothers and,’ (this with a glance at Tom and Pat) ‘sweethearts, can you hear such laughter and cries and not shudder? If you can, then when next you hear it think of what it would be for you to hear some voice that you love raised like that.’ Mr Muldoon could not stand it any longer and spoke out: ‘But come now, I can’t see how all the misery and wretchedness of the world is to be laid on a simple glass of beer.’ ‘Hear, hear,’ said Miss M’Anaspie. Parnell’s reply was allegorical. ‘Do you see how the oak springs from the acorn - the bird from the egg? I tell you that if there were no spirits there would be less sin, and shame, and sorrow than there is.’ ‘Oh, yes,’ said Muldoon. ‘It would be a beautiful world entirely, and everybody would have everything, and nobody would want nothing, and we’d all be grand fellows. Eh, Miss Margaret, what do you think?’ ‘Hear, hear,’ said Miss M’Anaspie, more timidly than before, however, at the same time looking over at Mrs O’Sullivan, who was looking not too well pleased at her. ‘Ah, sir,’ said Parnell, sadly, ‘God knows that we, men and women, are not what we ought to be, and sin will be in the world, I suppose, till the time that is told. But this I say, that drink is the greatest enemy that man has on earth.’ ‘Why, you’re quite an enthusiast,’ said Mr Muldoon; ‘one would think you were inspired.’ ‘I would I were inspired. I wish my voice was of gold, and that I could make men hear me all over the world, and that I could make the stars ring again with cries against the madness that men bring upon themselves.’ ‘Upon my life,’ said Mr Muldoon, ‘you should be on the stage. You have missed your vocation. By the way, what is your vocation?’ ‘I am a hatter.’ Miss M’Anaspie blurted out suddenly, ‘Mad as a hatter,’ and then suddenly got red in the face, and shut up completely as she saw her employer’s eye fixed on her with a glare almost baleful in its intensity. Mr Muldoon laughed loudly, and slapped his fat knees as he ejaculated - ‘Brayvo, brayvo. One for his nob - mad as a hatter. That accounts for the enthusiasm.’ Then, seeing a look of such genuine pain on Katey’s face that even his obtuseness could not hide from him how deeply he was hurting her, added - ‘Of course, Mr Parnell, I am only joking; but still it is not bad - mad as a hatter. Ha, ha!’ No one said anything more, and no one laughed; and so the matter was dropped. Jerry felt that a gloom had fallen on the assemblage, and tried to lift it by starting a new topic. ‘Do you know,’ said he, ‘I had a letter from John Sebright the other day, and he tells me if you want to make money England’s the place.’ ‘Indeed,’ said his mother, satirically. Going to England was an old ‘fad’ of Jerry’s, and one which had caused his mother many...