Dracula, A Longman Cutural Edition, 1st edition

From Longman's Cultural Edition series, this new edition of Dracula, edited by Andrew Elfenbein, recovers the cultural complexity of Bram Stoker's tale and offers a wide array of contextualizing documents, including contemporary reviews and articles about Eastern Europe, science, gender, and media. 

From Twilight to True Blood, no creation from the British 1890s has a larger profile in contemporary culture than Dracula.  Rather than tracing Dracula through all his later incarnations, this edition offers ways to understand the late Victorian origins of Bram Stoker’s remarkable book.  While Dracula never simply reflects contemporary trends, reading it with knowledge of contemporary events and debates can clarify what may otherwise seem puzzling. Throughout, Stoker emphasizes that his vampire story takes place not in a hazy, fictional past, but in a sharply realized England of the 1890s. The materials in the sections of Cultural Contexts illuminate the references to Victorian culture in Stoker’s version of this seemingly timeless story.  

Handsomely produced and affordably priced, the Longman Cultural Editions series presents classic works in provocative and illuminating contexts-cultural, critical, and literary. Each Cultural Edition consists of the complete texts of important literary works, reliably edited, headed by an inviting introduction, and supplemented by helpful annotations; a table of dates to track its composition, publication, and public reception in relation to biographical, cultural and historical events; and a guide for further inquiry and study.

For a complete list of Longman Cultural Editions, visit www.pearsonhighered.com.

• The Cultural Contexts section on Eastern Europe features three of Stoker’s most important sources: works by Charles Boner, Edmund Cecil Johnson, and Emily Gerard, whose “Transylvanian Superstitions” was a key inspiration. 
• The section on gender highlights the controversies swirling aroun the "New Woman," whose increasingly aggressive claim to a role in society was disturbing many while energizing others.
• Characters in Dracula look to science for answers to explain the psychology and behavior of Renfield, Dracula, and even each other. The section on science excerpts several of the most relevant texts: works on degeneration and criminality by Nordau and Ellis; on hypnosis by Hack Tuke; and on homicidal mania by Aitken. 
• Dracula’s contemporaneity is nowhere more evident than in its involvement with new technology, from Harker’s Kodak camera to Mina’s traveling typewriter to Seward’s phonograph. Excerpts from handbooks and articles on the phonograph, the typewriter, and shorthand, will help you visualize just what the characters are describing and using.
• Longman Cultural Editions include both primary texts of major writers and contemporaneous material that contextualizes those texts, including reviews, critical essays, responses, and newspaper and magazine articles.