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KEV67

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20 minutes ago, lunababymoonchild said:

My Victober reading!

Oooh I love those editions of Varney the Vampire! You can really see just how long it is overall when you see them like that though!

 

That's the edition of Lady Audley's Secret that I bought too.

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23 minutes ago, KEV67 said:

Those Varney the Vampire books do look. I'd be interested to hear if they are any good.


They are absolutely huge, I'm going to need a bookstand to read them. A quick look through and the paper inside is beautiful as are the illustrations. They were hugely expensive, though……..

 

I will update you in due course.

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3 hours ago, Hayley said:

Oooh I love those editions of Varney the Vampire! You can really see just how long it is overall when you see them like that though!

 

That's the edition of Lady Audley's Secret that I bought too.


 Yup, all the way in love with them myself. I wonder what it was like to get the parts once a week!

 

Lady Audley will be next. I do like Wordsworth Classics, it says complete and unabridged on the back - are you sensing a theme?

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3 hours ago, lunababymoonchild said:

I wonder what it was like to get the parts once a week!

It must have been so exciting to get the next part. I think there’s a good chance I would have been a Penny Dreadful reader if I had been a Victorian :lol:

 

3 hours ago, lunababymoonchild said:

I do like Wordsworth Classics, it says complete and unabridged on the back - are you sensing a theme?

Haha, yes! I do like these editions for being cheap but still unabridged. I really do not like the cover image on this one though. If you look at the straps of her bag it literally looks as though someone quickly drew two lines on in clip art. They don’t even meet her arm! 

 

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I wondered whether this bit was hinting at same-sex love. Not really sure.

 

'How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you cast eyes on him when I have forbidden it? Back, I tell you all! This man belongs to me! Beware how you meddle with him, or you'll have to deal with me.' The fair girl, with laugh of ribald coquetry, turned to answer him:-

'You yourself never loved; you never love!' On this the other women joined, and such a mirthless, hard, soulless laughter rang through the room that it almost made me faint to hear; it seemed like the pleasure of fiends. The the Count turned, after looking at my face attentively and said in a soft whisper:-

'Yes, I too can love; you yourselves can tell it from the past. Is it not so? Well, now I promise you that when I am done with him, you shall kiss him at your will. Now go! go! I must awaken him, for there is work to be done.'

 

Something about the introduction that has occurred to me. I don't think Professor Roger Lockhurst mentioned syphilis. Syphilis was rife in the nineteenth century. Actually he did mention it. He speculated Bram Stoker had it. Syphilis could cause death and deformity in children. It is also nasty in that it goes away, but then comes back many years later in a different form. Quite often it attacks the nervous system. Maybe vampirism reflects on tuberculosis too. TB is not sexually transmitted, but it is a long term wasting disease. I think one symptom is paleness. Having either disease may count you among the living dead or under a curse. Not a very original thought, I'm sure.

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On 03/10/2021 at 6:07 PM, KEV67 said:

I wondered whether this bit was hinting at same-sex love. Not really sure.

I hadn't thought of it that way but it could be read in that context. That previous section with Jonathan and the female vampires is definitely very sexual, but there's more going on here too, with Dracula's control of these women, I think. 

 

On 03/10/2021 at 6:07 PM, KEV67 said:

Professor Roger Lockhurst

I didn't realise he wrote the introduction. I met him once, he's very nice and very, very good at what he does!

 

I think that's an interesting point about vampirism and disease. Fear of wasting diseases which had no cure would definitely have made the 'symptoms' of being bitten more terrifying! Probably a connection to made there with the late eighteenth-century 'consumptive chic' too (purposely trying to look like you had 'consumption' because it was fashionable) and the attractiveness of vampires in literature and film.

 

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45 minutes ago, lunababymoonchild said:

Alrighty, I have finished Dance of the Serpents by Oscar de Muriel and will be moving on to Lady Audley's Secret.

Already!? You'll be able to finish Varney the Vampire this month at that rate.

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Dracula has started to remind me of Wilkie Collins' Woman in White and Moonstone, with all the diary entries, letters and changes of perspective. Got to say I think Bram Stoker does it well. One of the characters, Dr Seward is in charge of a lunatic asylum, which is a very sensation novel thing to be.

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9 hours ago, lunababymoonchild said:

Alrighty, I have finished Dance of the Serpents by Oscar de Muriel

That was quick! I'm assuming the end is good then!? I'm going to read some now!

 

3 hours ago, KEV67 said:

One of the characters, Dr Seward is in charge of a lunatic asylum, which is a very sensation novel thing to be.

And a very Gothic thing to be! Double points :lol:

 

I also thought the changes in perspective and use of letters etc. were particularly nicely done in Dracula. It slows the rate that you find things out just enough to make it extra tense, but without it becoming too drawn out. 

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15 hours ago, lunababymoonchild said:

It is.

I had to make myself stop reading last night because I needed to be up early, but this part is full of twists!!

 

I wanted to share this while we're thinking about Victorian things: 🎃🕸️ WikiVictorian 🕸️🎃 (@wikivictorian) / Twitter this Twitter account posts loads of brilliant art, items and clothing from that time. If you scroll down to yesterday's posts it had the mourning dress of Queen Victoria (which made me think of Dance of the Serpents!). Fairly sure you should be able to see it even if you don't have a twitter account.

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1 hour ago, Hayley said:

I had to make myself stop reading last night because I needed to be up early, but this part is full of twists!!

 

I wanted to share this while we're thinking about Victorian things: 🎃🕸️ WikiVictorian 🕸️🎃 (@wikivictorian) / Twitter this Twitter account posts loads of brilliant art, items and clothing from that time. If you scroll down to yesterday's posts it had the mourning dress of Queen Victoria (which made me think of Dance of the Serpents!). Fairly sure you should be able to see it even if you don't have a twitter account.


I don't have a twitter account but did manage to see this. It's lovely, thank you 

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Dracula has arrived in Whitby. I last went to Whitby during a cycling holiday. I visited the ruined abbey mentioned in the book. The bookshop had lots of fancy editions of Dracula.

 

I am a little surprised at the extent of Dracula's powers. It looks like he can raise storms, sail ships by himself, and shape shift into a giant dog. I am aware of their reputation for turning into bats, but not dogs. Perhaps he is a werewolf as well as a vampire. However the report was definitely of a dog, not a wolf. The three witches in Macbeth could control the winds, but I was unaware vampires could. Vampire powers and limitations are never entirely consistent. The three girl vampires could just appear or disappear in a room at will. They did not need to open any windows or doors.

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On 07/10/2021 at 12:24 PM, KEV67 said:

 

I have just been wrong-footed by East Lynne; as wrong-footed as Billy Wright was by Ferenc Puskas in the 1953 international friendly between England and Hungary.

 

I’m glad you included the video clip because I’d have had to search otherwise! I do love a good twist in a story. 

 

On 07/10/2021 at 2:32 PM, KEV67 said:

Dracula has arrived in Whitby. I last went to Whitby during a cycling holiday. I visited the ruined abbey mentioned in the book. The bookshop had lots of fancy editions of Dracula.

I would love to go to Whitby. Partly because of Dracula, partly because it sounded amazing in Possession by A.S Byatt, and partly because I hear they have excellent fish and chips :lol:. Possession made a lot of the Victorian love for Whitby Jet in mourning jewellery, which is something I’d also be interested in. 

 

On 07/10/2021 at 2:32 PM, KEV67 said:

shape shift into a giant dog.

I wonder whether appearing as a black dog is related to other folk tales about black dogs as bad omens?

 

On 07/10/2021 at 2:32 PM, KEV67 said:

Vampire powers and limitations are never entirely consistent. The three girl vampires could just appear or disappear in a room at will. They did not need to open any windows or doors.

The way they do that is implied later in the book but I’m not sure if you’ll have gotten there yet and don’t want to give anything away! 

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On 08/10/2021 at 4:04 PM, lunababymoonchild said:

The Black Dog is also used as a metaphor for depression.

Oh yes! I suppose it all adds to a sense of a sinister threat approaching.

 

I finished Dance of the Serpents last night (was NOT expecting that last scene!) so I'll be starting Lady Audley's Secret today. Reading the notes at the end of Dance of the Serpents - where Oscar de Muriel explains which elements were true and which were fiction - made me think about the way he actually writes about the Victorian period compared to other authors I've read and I think what I really like about his setting is that it actually feels real. There are a lot of novels with Victorian settings that end up like a kind of caricature of that period, with characters from real life thrown in to make it feel more genuine (although I actually think that often makes it worse). The characters in the Frey & McGray novels fit into their world perfectly; they don't have aside thoughts about the usefulness of telegram or to reflect on the railway in ways that we just don't do with everyday things in our own times. 

Oscar de Muriel posted on Twitter earlier this week that he'd had the final book in the series, The Sign of the Devil, back from his editor (and teased that one of the editor's comments was 'so many bombshells!!!') so I can't wait for that - although I will be very sad that no more books are coming out. Hopefully he'll start a new, equally good series!

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3 hours ago, Hayley said:

I finished Dance of the Serpents last night (was NOT expecting that last scene!) so I'll be starting Lady Audley's Secret today. Reading the notes at the end of Dance of the Serpents - where Oscar de Muriel explains which elements were true and which were fiction - made me think about the way he actually writes about the Victorian period compared to other authors I've read and I think what I really like about his setting is that it actually feels real. There are a lot of novels with Victorian settings that end up like a kind of caricature of that period, with characters from real life thrown in to make it feel more genuine (although I actually think that often makes it worse). The characters in the Frey & McGray novels fit into their world perfectly; they don't have aside thoughts about the usefulness of telegram or to reflect on the railway in ways that we just don't do with everyday things in our own times. 

Oscar de Muriel posted on Twitter earlier this week that he'd had the final book in the series, The Sign of the Devil, back from his editor (and teased that one of the editor's comments was 'so many bombshells!!!') so I can't wait for that - although I will be very sad that no more books are coming out. Hopefully he'll start a new, equally good series!


There's another ? I thought that Dance of the Serpents was the last one. Ooh hooray! Wasn't it good?

 

I'm thoroughly into Lady Audley's Secret and am enjoying it immensely. 

Edited by lunababymoonchild
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5 hours ago, lunababymoonchild said:

There's another ? I thought that Dance of the Serpents was the last one.

Oh yes! When you said The Dance of the Serpents was the last one I thought you meant the last one we have to read for now! I think the actual last one will be out next year. I really hope 

Spoiler

we get to find out what really happened with Pansy and her parents. Do you have any theories??

 

5 hours ago, lunababymoonchild said:

Wasn't it good?

It was so good! There were so many intense moments and layers of mystery. 

 

7 hours ago, lunababymoonchild said:

I'm thoroughly into Lady Audley's Secret and am enjoying it immensely. 

That's good to hear! I'm just about to start it.

 

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11 minutes ago, Hayley said:

Oh yes! When you said The Dance of the Serpents was the last one I thought you meant the last one we have to read for now! I think the actual last one will be out next year. I really hope 

  Reveal hidden contents

we get to find out what really happened with Pansy and her parents. Do you have any theories??

 


No, I genuinely thought that was it. Amazon have it listed as coming out in August next year. 
 

Spoiler

Absolutely no idea! I only know that it will be good

 

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