⇒ Read Gratis One Thousand and One Ghosts Hesperus Classics Alexandre Dumas 9781843910824 Books

One Thousand and One Ghosts Hesperus Classics Alexandre Dumas 9781843910824 Books

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One Thousand and One Ghosts Hesperus Classics Alexandre Dumas 9781843910824 Books

very good


Tags : One Thousand and One Ghosts (Hesperus Classics) [Alexandre Dumas] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <DIV><DIV>Written at the height of the 1848 revolutions, Alexandre Dumas’ <I>One Thousand and One Ghosts</I> is a macabre collection of supernatural tales,Alexandre Dumas,One Thousand and One Ghosts (Hesperus Classics),Hesperus Press,1843910829,Classics,Literary,France - History,France - History France - History,Occult fiction,Occult fiction Occult fiction,19th century fiction,Classic fiction (pre c 1945),FICTION Classics,FICTION General,FICTION Ghost,FICTION Literary,FRENCH NOVEL AND SHORT STORY,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction-Classics,France,French,GENERAL,Great BritainBritish Isles,LiteratureClassics,Literature: Classics,ScholarlyUndergraduate,Western Europe

One Thousand and One Ghosts Hesperus Classics Alexandre Dumas 9781843910824 Books Reviews

This is a collection of ghost stories in a format I particularly like. Each story is told by a different person at a social gathering. Author Alexandre Dumas is among them, and is faithfully recording the tales. The guests all believe in supernatural occurrences, except for one skeptical doctor.

The subject comes up because there has just been a murder in the town, and the murderer claimed that the severed head of his dead wife berated him. One of the guests just happens to have a story about a speaking severed head, and that gets things rolling, so to speak. Other stories concern a hanged man who gets up to mischief, a woman who survives the bloody attentions of a vampire, a cemetery worker who is punished for showing disrespect to the dead body of a king, a judge who's haunted by a man he condemned to death, and a widow whose dead husband makes sure she honors his last wishes.

The tumultuous politics of Europe form an interesting backdrop to some of the stories the French Revolution and the fighting between Poland and Russia.

Dumas has a real flair for creating an ominous atmosphere. And the psychology of each raconteur pervades his or her story in a fascinating way. There's also an element of romance present. Love doesn't always rest in the grave.

The introduction offers a scholarly analysis of the book, and is quite good. I lifted the title of this review from it. And as always with Hesperus editions, the book is beautifully produced. It would make a nice gift for a lover of literary ghost stories.
Okay, so it's not quite Stephen King. Still, these stories are actually pretty scary. They are presented as if a group of people were telling ghost stories late in the evening. Some of them deal with the guillotine; one of these features a great use of irony, even if it is a bit predictable. All of the stories are masterfully macabre, and I found that they became increasingly more compelling as I continued to read them.
I really enjoyed this book. I have read a lot of Dumas, and I expected his good writing. However, I disagree with the product description that this book is macabre and full of suspense.

If you are looking for ghost tales, or something grisly, or for an adrenaline rush, I just don't think this book is for you--partially because it is not modern. If you get of those sentiments from Dumas' other work, you'll like this.

It's still classic Dumas; it's still very good. Begin the book with an open mind; finish it will zeal. While the content of the book is unusual--talk about chopped off heads and ghostly encounters--that has far more to do with the times (the book was only written 50 years after the reign of Madame Guillotine) and with speculation.
How long do people live, once they are considered dead? This book also has romantic elements.

Spoiler warning One man's love, a hiding aristocrat in the French Revolution, is guillotined, something he does not know until he comes across her head (he's a physician trying to figure out how long people remain conscious after being guillotined).

One young woman is remarkably pale; two brothers loved her. The evil one dies and his ghost tries to kill her so that she can join him in the grave. The good brother (and the one she loves) saves her, but dies in the process. **Update I named my two goldfish Edvige and Gregoriska after this tale. They died, in exactly the right order. Quite uncanny.**

You see, really, it is classic Dumas in an unconventional package.
very good