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TROW, M. J: : VLAD THE IMPALER: IN SEARCH OF THE REAL DRACULA

UK,STROUD,GLOS.SUTTON PUBLISHING LTD.,2003.

ISBN 0750929650.

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.FINE/FINE.No owner inscrptn,and no price-clip to dw/dj. Bright,crisp,clean,glossy laminated, colour pictorial dw/dj; with negligible shelf-wear and creases to edges and corners - no nicks or tears present.Top+ fore-edges bright and clean; contents bright,tight and near pristine. Unblemished,publisher's original,black cloth boards with bright,crisp stamped gilt letters to spine/backstrip and immaculate plain white endpapers.UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn,iv-vpp+1-280pp [paginated] includes illustrations list, acknowledgements,13 chapters,8pp containing 14 b/w contemporary illus/ photographs between pp120/1,Draculesti family tree,notes,a bibliography and an index; plus [unpaginated] title page, contents list,single page b/w maps of Europe c1460 and also Wallachia, Transylvania and Moldavia. In Spring 1460,wrote a contemporary, 'untold abuses,damage hardly reparable, sad murders,mutilations,sorrows' were visited upon the city of Brasov,by 'the unfaithful cruel tyrant Dracula,who calls himself Vlad,prince . . .He did this following the teaching of the Devil.' According to legend,he impaled his victims,then sat at table mopping up their blood from his plate; later he hung the still live bodies of opposing forces on a field of stakes.So began the history of Vlad the Impaler.But were his actions the righteous defence of a kingdom,an act of vengeance for the cruel deaths of his father and brother? Or the unspeakable fury of a madman with a taste for blood? In his new book,crime writer and historian M.J.Trow peels back the layers of myth and history to reveal the real man whose name gave birth to a legend.He explores the terror with which the character was once associated,going backwards in time from the celluloid Count of Hammer and Universal Studios to the literary creations of Bram Stoker,Sheridan Le Fanu and John Polidori.Before that,the folklore of Europe,from Ireland to Russia, carries terrifying tales of blood-sucking ghouls hovering in churchyards,the 'dead undead' or revenants who slept in their coffins by day and terrorized remote villages by night. A century and a half before Stoker wrote Dracula,vampire outbreaks hit a bewildered Europe,centring inexorably on Transylvania,'the land beyond the forest', the undead's natural home.Beyond the forests,in this horseshoe of the Carpathians',once lived the original of Stoker's terrible and immortal Count,Vlad ruled Wallachia (today's Romania) three times in the mid-fifteenth century.Outside his tiny state,he was known as Dracula, son of the Dragon,son of the Devil.By his own people,he was called Tepes,the Impaler,after his grisly method of execution.This book looks at Vlad from the many facets he has left to history - the Impaler; the Renaissance prince 'more sinned against than sinning' whose reputation was destroyed by his enemies; the hero on a white horse,who welded Wallachia into a fighting and defiant nation-state; the defeated martyr, captured by the Hungarian King Corvinus.A stylishly written and compelling narrative,this book unravels the true story behind the image,and takes us into the heart of the bloody,uncertain world of medieval Europe. Please contact seller,because of the weight/value of this item,for correct, insured shipping/P+p quotes - particularly ALL overseas buyers - BEFORE ordering through the order page!

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.
Not SIGNED.

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