{"id":12609,"date":"2014-10-26T08:00:09","date_gmt":"2014-10-26T08:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=12609"},"modified":"2014-10-23T14:57:28","modified_gmt":"2014-10-23T14:57:28","slug":"the-penny-dreadful-collection-frankenstein-the-picture-of-dorian-gray-and-dracula","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2014\/10\/26\/the-penny-dreadful-collection-frankenstein-the-picture-of-dorian-gray-and-dracula\/","title":{"rendered":"The Penny Dreadful Collection: Frankenstein, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Dracula"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nWin’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: What Every Home Should Have\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 10\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/strong>: a dark mash up of Victorian fantasy icons which seemed to push all the right buttons for a substantial portion of the global audience.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

I’m not going to waste my time, or insult your intelligenced with detail pr\u00c3\u00a9cis 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.<\/p>\n

Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus<\/strong>
\nBy Mary Shelley<\/strong> with 8 original illustrations by Louie de Martinis<\/strong> (Titan Books)
\nISBNs: 978-1-78329-363-6<\/p>\n

Written by the precious and formidably bright Mary Shelley when she was 18, the prototype horror novel was originally published anonymously in 1818.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Utterly gripping, it lays claim to being both the first true horror and science fiction novel\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The Picture of Dorian Gray<\/strong>
\nBy Oscar Wilde<\/strong> with 6 original illustrations by Ian Bass<\/strong> (Titan Books)
\nISBNs: 978-1-78329-365-0<\/p>\n

Oscar Wilde’s only novel began life as a serial in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine <\/strong>in 1891 where it scandalised London Society despite being savagely censored before publication.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Dracula<\/strong>
\nBy Bram Stoker<\/strong> with 6 original illustrations by Martin Stiff<\/strong> (Titan Books)
\nISBNs: 978-1-78329-364-3<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Text design throughout \u00c2\u00a9 2014 Titan Books. All Rights Reserved. Illustrations \u00e2\u201e\u00a2 and \u00c2\u00a9 2014 Showtime Networks Inc. All Rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: What Every Home Should Have\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 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 … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Penny Dreadful Collection: Frankenstein, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Dracula”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[66,160,107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horror-stories","category-pocket-paperback-collections","category-science-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-3hn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12609\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}