Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: What Every Home Should Have… 10/10
Generally I’m wittering on about a specific story or book but today I’m recommending a combined artefact which should reinvigorate some of the greatest, most mythic modern fantasy tales for a new generation – and which communally comprise an ideal gift for Halloween or Christmas for anyone of a literary bent or who just loves books and stories.
We’re in the midst of a minor Gothic revival at the moment, and in April of this year Showtime and Sky Atlantic began broadcasting Penny Dreadful: a dark mash up of Victorian fantasy icons which seemed to push all the right buttons for a substantial portion of the global audience.
In conjunction with that small screen event Titan Books reissued the original prose masterpieces which between them pretty much invented the genre of scary stories.
On TV the protagonist of each groundbreaking classic has been craftily re-imagined for the jaded and sophisticated tastes of contemporary viewers but to my mind there’s nothing better than the originals, and these are books everybody should have read…
I’m not going to waste my time, or insult your intelligenced with detail précis of these landmark tomes, but I will assure you that each complete and unabridged, substantial and luxurious prestige hardback is a joy to read and possess.
Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus
By Mary Shelley with 8 original illustrations by Louie de Martinis (Titan Books)
ISBNs: 978-1-78329-363-6
Written by the precious and formidably bright Mary Shelley when she was 18, the prototype horror novel was originally published anonymously in 1818.
The result of a traumatic dream, it details the life and follies of an obsessed scientist who succeeds in his dream of creating life and learns over hard, painful years to repent his folly.
Utterly gripping, it lays claim to being both the first true horror and science fiction novel…
The Picture of Dorian Gray
By Oscar Wilde with 6 original illustrations by Ian Bass (Titan Books)
ISBNs: 978-1-78329-365-0
Oscar Wilde’s only novel began life as a serial in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine in 1891 where it scandalised London Society despite being savagely censored before publication.
Undaunted, Wilde revised and expanded his Faustian tale of art and philosophy into a scathing social critique as it described the cautionary tale of a decadent young man whose outer beauty remained unchanged whilst a prefect portrait gradually recorded and showed every punishing mark of his debauched life.
Dracula
By Bram Stoker with 6 original illustrations by Martin Stiff (Titan Books)
ISBNs: 978-1-78329-364-3
Released in 1897, this pivotal novel of mystery and terror found few fans during the author’s lifetime, but achieved global acclaim during the early days of cinema.
This epistolary tale of an undying, debased and demonic noble from the feudal Balkans who attempts to create a new kingdom at the heart of the British Empire, opposed by a Man of Knowledge a girl of fierce determination and band of heroic stalwarts reshaped popular literature and remains unsurpassed in terms of influence to this day.
Text design throughout © 2014 Titan Books. All Rights Reserved. Illustrations ™ and © 2014 Showtime Networks Inc. All Rights reserved.