Dracula, first issue - photo 1

Dracula, first issue

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$ 22 680
Auction dateClassic
06.10.2022 12:00UTC -04:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
USA, New York
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ID 813749
Lot 141 | Dracula, first issue
Dracula, first issue

Bram Stoker, 1897

STOKER, Bram (1847-1912). Dracula. London: Archibald Constable, 1897.



First edition, first issue. The first issue is without the advertisement for Stoker's The Shoulder of Shasta on page [392]; the present is the variant with 8-page publisher's catalogue at end and the main body of text printed on uncoated wove paper.



According to Bram Stoker's son Noel, the genesis of Dracula was a terrifying dream about a vampire king rising from his tomb, brought on by eating too much lobster. 3,000 copies of Dracula were sent to bookstores on 26 May 1897, and although reviews were mixed, Stoker's mother Charlotte wrote to him: "My dear, it is splendid, a thousand miles beyond anything you have written before, and I feel certain will place you very high in the writers of the day—the story and style being deeply sensational, exciting and interesting ... No book since Mrs. Shelley's Frankenstein or indeed any other at all has come near yours in originality, or terror." This maternal praise was echoed by a devoted Victorian readership but not by all contemporary critics, some of whom objected to the novel's imaginative structure. Arthur Conan Doyle, however, wrote that Dracula was "the very best story of diablerie which I have read for many years. It is really wonderful how with so much exciting interest over so long a book there is never an anticlimax." Stoker died 20 April 1912, not living long enough to see Dracula's immense cultural impact, and its many permutations in print and on the screen. Today, Stoker's Dracula continues to assert a profound hold on the popular imagination. As a character, Count Dracula remains an archetype of exceptionally enduring power. His nocturnal savageries are both deeply repellent and yet strangely compelling. Bleiler, The Checklist of Science-Fiction and Supernatural Fiction (1978), p.187; Dalby 10(a); Wolff 6581.



Octavo (193 x 125mm). Half-title. 8-page publisher's advertisements at end printed on laid paper. (Scattered few very minor stains.) Original yellow cloth lettered in red (darkening, some stains to back cover, tips bumped, hinges cracked). Custom chemise and quarter morocco slipcase.

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