The Definitive Judge’s House

• Introduction and frontispiece by Mike Mignola
• Endnotes and afterword by Jack G. Voller
• Bram Stoker Series #6
•  Printings: December 2011 (150)
• Style: A5, hand-sewn pamphlet
• Length: 36 pages

“I was probably about thirteen years old when I read Dracula for the first time. I have no idea why. I ordered it from one of those little book catalogues you used to get in school. I shudder to think what would have happened if, instead, I’d tried to read Frankenstein at that age. It surely must have been in the same catalogue. Maybe I’d be an accountant now. Nothing against Frankenstein, but I know me, and I know it would not have hooked me through the eyeball (and brain) the way Dracula did. I distinctly remember finishing the book and thinking, ‘Well, this is it. I have found my thing.’ It’s like finding that city or, if you’re very lucky, that house where you know you want to spend the rest of your life. And that’s pretty much what I’ve done.”

Just in time for Christmas comes the definitive edition of Stoker’s famous haunted house story, “The Judge’s House”. This facsimile edition, celebrating the 120th anniversary of the tale’s first appearance, reproduces the text from Dracula’s Guest and Other Weird Stories (1914). And especially for the occasion, Mike Mignola, the esteemed creator of Hellboy, has provided an original frontpiece — a portrait of Stoker’s baleful and vindictive Judge — and an introduction entitled “Bram Stoker and I”. Also included is a reproduction (in miniature) of the story’s 1891 appearance in the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News’s Christmas annual, Holly Leaves. Rounding out the booklet are endnotes and an afterword by Gothic scholar Jack G. Voller. And remember, “Rats is bogies, I tell you, and bogies is rats!”

 Order now from The Swan River Press

STRANGE ATTRACTOR JOURNAL FOUR is, as you’d expect, yet another marvelous collection of freaky fortean, occult and esoteric loveliness.

From Haiti and Hong Kong to the fourth dimension and beyond: discover the secrets of madness in animals; voodoo soul and dub music; ancient peacock deities; Chinese poisoning cults; the history of spider silk weaving; heathen mugwort magic; sentient lightning; Jesuit conspiracy theories; junkie explorers; Dali’s Atlantis; the resurgence of Pan (in London’s Crouch End); anarchist pirates on Madagascar; an ancient Greek Rip Van Winkle; French anatomical waxworks; Arthur Machen’s forgotten tales and the full text of Alan Moore’s unfinished John Dee opera.

Yes, Alan Moore’s unfinished John Dee opera! The one he isn’t doing with Gorillaz… even thought they’re still doing it… Wait, what? I don’t know, cheeky buggers, eh?

You can buy SAJ4 direct from the source or from Amazon

POE’S TALES OF MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY HARRY CLARKE – I was given the Arcturus Publishing edition (which I can’t seem to Google up a cover image for) as a belated Birthday/Xmas present and it’s a really gorgeous book. It’s 12 inches by 10 inches which means that the Clarke images are massive!

The works of Edgar Allan Poe, in the rarefied company of Thoreau, Hawthorne, Twain, and Melville, represent the full flowering of American literature in the nineteenth century. By itself, this edition would be an outstanding collection of 29 tales of mystery, suspense, and the macabre; but what sets this volume apart are the magnificent illustrations of Harry Clarke. Many artists have attempted to illustrate Poe, though it is no easy feat to match graphically the powerful effect of Poe’s words on the reader.

You can get the Arcturus Publishing ed. of TOMAI from Abe Books or Amazon

TO MY DEAR FRIEND HOMMY-BEG – THE GREAT FRIENDSHIP OF BRAM STOKER AND HALL CAINE – is the latest booklet in the wonderful Swan River Press Bram Stoker Series.

“Hall Caine was an incredible literary phenomenon, becoming the richest and most popular novelist of the late Victorian and Edwardian era, greatly outselling all of his rivals from Henry James to Joseph Conrad. By the end of the twentieth century all of his novels were out-of-print, and ironically his major claim to fame now comes from being the dedicatee of Dracula, albeit under the disguised family nickname of “Hommy-Beg”. It is a bizarre twist of fate that Bram Stoker is now so much more famous worldwide than Hall Caine — an unbelievable reversal of their roles one hundred years ago.”

This booklet explores the intimate, lifelong friendship between Stoker and Caine in their own words. Accompanying an introduction by Stoker scholar Richard Dalby are rare and un-reprinted pieces including letters, extracts from Caine’s autobiographical My Story (1908) and Stoker’s Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving (1906), Stoker’s introductions to The Works of Hall Caine (1905) and hitherto unknown essay “The Ethics of Hall Caine” (1909), Caine’s touching obituary to Stoker (1912), and a reproduction of Stoker’s inscription to Caine in the latter’s copy of Dracula — printed here for the first time.

The Bram Stoker Series is available by subscription only. For €25.00 (including P&P), subscribers will receive  titles shortly after their publication dates. Subscribe on the Swan River Press site.

The first of three brand new titles (following on from 2010′s Four Romances by Mr. Bram Stoker,  Bram Stoker’s Other Gothics–Contemporary Reviews, and Extracts from Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving by Bram Stoker) is coming in January 2011.

Contemporary Reviews of “Dracula”

Introduced by Leah Moore and John Reppion
Bram Stoker Series #4
Printings: January 2011 (125)
Style: A5, hand-sewn pamphlet
Length: 36 pages

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“Over the decades, as with so many other iconic stories, Dracula has fallen prey to numerous popularly held misconceptions. Until recently we had ourselves laboured under one such misconception: that Dracula was not well received by the reading public when it was first published. We believed it to have been something of a disappointment where sales where concerned; an overlooked treasure, ahead of its time, destined to be rediscovered at a later date… we also assumed that some of the subtler aspects of the novel, which give the post-modern reader satisfaction, might have gone over the heads of the nineteenth century audience. How could a stuffy Victorian possibly get pleasure from this book in the same way a twenty-first century reader might? Needless to say — as this volume of reviews demonstrates — we grossly underestimated not only the horror reader of 1897, but also, to some degree, Mr. Stoker himself.”

Contemporary Reviews of “Dracula” collects together a selection of reviews of Stoker’s seminal work shortly after it was published in England in 1897 and in America in 1899. These reviews — both complimentary and critical — give insight into Dracula’s initial public reception, unmarred by decades of misconceptions, academic scrutiny and literary legendary. Assembled from the list provided by Richard Dalby and William Hughes in their Bram Stoker: A Bibliography, these reviews appeared in many of the leading publications of their day, including The Spectator, Punch, Vanity Fair, and The Athenaeum. The booklet includes an insightful introduction by Leah Moore and John Reppion, who faithfully adapted Dracula as a graphic novel; and also reproduces first edition US and UK covers, as well as two short reviews of Dracula’s Guest and Other Weird Stories (1914).

Contemporary Reviews of “Dracula” will be followed by To My Dear Friend Hommy-Beg: The Great Friendship of Bram Stoker and Hall Caine, introduced by Richard Dalby, and The Definitive Judge’s House, with an introduction and frontpiece by Mike Mignola and endnotes and afterword by Jack G. Voller.

Dynamite Entertainment presents an unprecedented comic book series that tells the complete story of the Lord of the Undead – Dracula! For the first time in 112 years, the tale that Bram Stoker intended to tell is told (including “Dracula’s Guest”).

Writers Leah Moore and John Reppion are joined by painter Colton Worley for a fully painted series, reprinted here in this softcover collected edition. All of the stunning covers by John Cassaday are included, along with script pages, annotations by Leah Moore and John Reppion and samplings of the original text by Bram Stoker!

Order paperback now from Amazon.co.uk

Order paperback now from Amazon.com

And here’s a 16 page preview for you:

If you’re a fan of old Mr. Stoker’s work  and still hungry for more then you could certainly do worse than check out The Swan River Press’ Bram Stoker Series of pamphlets

We’re honored to have made it onto the long-list for the 2010 British Fantasy Society Awards with our Dynamite Entertainment adaptation The Complete Dracula. We’re up against some ridiculously strong competition so we really, really do need your help to get onto the short-list.

You can find info on how to cast your vote at www.britishfantasysociety.org

The first of the three titles, Four Romances, is available now.

Here collected for the first time since their original publication in periodicals, these four romances display a side of Bram Stoker’s writing somewhat less familiar to modern readers. Even so, these tales are not quite devoid of the elements we have come to expect from the master of horror, mystery, cruelty and black humour. Spanning Stoker’s literary career, this volume reprints “Greater Love” (1914), “Our New House” (1886), “A Yellow Duster” (1899) and “The Way of Peace” (1909). Rounding out the collection is an introduction by Stoker biographer Paul Murray and a never before printed essay, “Rules for Domestic Happiness”, by Charlotte M. B. Stoker — Bram’s mother, who is often credited with instilling in the young author an early sense of fatalism and the macabre.

Ordering info at www.brianjshowers.com/swanriverpress