Heart-pounding.

É noite, o ar frio corre a cidade, trazendo uma neblina densa. As ruas estão desertas, e talvez você ouça um som ao longe parecido com um uivo. Seu pensamento logo se distrai quando você ouve algo como passos bem mais perto. Torça para que seja apenas alguém pedindo informação. Pois é nesse cenário que Mr. Hyde, a forma desprezível de um médico de Londres, o conde Drácula, o famoso vampiro da Transilvânia, e Frankenstein, o temido monstro conhecido pelo nome de seu criador, costumam transitar. Exemplos máximos da melhor literatura de terror, estes três personagens saíram de livros que serviram de inspiração a uma legião de autores e até hoje apavoram leitores por todo o mundo. Escritos no século XIX, suas tramas nos envolvem numa teia costurada por medo, ansiedade e sombria atração, fazendo muita série atual parecer historinha de ninar. Frankenstein é a história de um jovem que cria um ser cruel e perturbado, decidido a se vingar de seu criador. Em Drácula, um grupo de homens corajosos inicia uma aventura para matar o mais terrível vampiro do mundo. Já O médico e o monstro conta como um conhecido médico desenvolve uma poção que lhe permite libertar seu lado mais obscuro. Com tradução da premiada escritora e tradutora Adriana Lisboa, estas três obras-primas são aqui lançadas juntas, numa reunião do que há de mais aterrorizante e espetacular da literatura. Imperdível!

This one is a bit harder to review seeing as there are 3 very different novels here. 1. Frankenstein was a good read. The story was well told and the characters easy to understand. However, I feel that she spent way too much time setting the scenes for us. It seems there was a lot of filler and not enough real substance. On a personal note, I do find it interesting how the novel never describes the details regarding the creation of the monster and everything we see depicted in movies and television is all theory and fabrication. 2. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was extremely difficult for me to get into. Perhaps it was the writing of the time and it just didn't cut the cake for me, I'm not exactly sure. Never-the-less, it was an interesting read. 3. Dracula was NOTHING like any of the modern films donning the name. The closest film adaptation was (shokingly to me) 1922 Nosferatu. I don't quite understand how we went from the decrepit monster in the novel to the charismatic, sexy and awe-inspiring Dracula's of current pop culture. All that aside, the novel was great. I was a bit timid at Stoker's choice to write the novel as compiled journal & diary entries from the characters in the story but it seemed to work out just fine and even gives you several different points of view in this gruesome tale. Very good read. ( )

3 books in one - I've written a note about Dracula elsewhere, and just read Frankenstein and Jekyll and Hyde from this book.

Frankenstein - Well you have to feel for the monster. Frankenstein is the archetypal thoughtless man, so excited that he can create life that he never stops to think whether he should. I mostly read this as a cautionary tale about terrible parenting.

Jekyll and Hyde - This is really a short story rather than a novel. It's pretty good, but there's a lot more detail about the admin of having such a split personality than I would have expected. ( )

These three together are the horror classics modern authors like King, Rice, Crichton, Thomas Harris are greatly indebted to. I think Stoker's Dracula is the strongest novel of the three--one with unforgettable characters, a propulsive narrative, and one where the narration and dialogue feels more natural. All three interestingly enough have first person elements. Dracula is almost entirely told through journals and letters; Frankenstein is framed as a letter about Victor Frankenstein including his (and the monster's) own account of the creature's creation and his ruin. A short novel, it's perhaps the most different than what popular culture would lead you to expect--more literary and philosophical, but also at times rather flowery and emo. Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde, a short novella, is mostly told in third person through the perspective of Dr Jekyl's friend and lawyer, but ends with Jekyll's letter giving his own account of what led to his transformation. That ending to me made the novel feel disjointed and abrupt, since we never get his friend's reaction to events. Dracula is a more sustained, lengthy novel, and in my opinion, the scariest. All three are worth a read--Frankenstein and Dr Jekyll are as much science fiction as horror, indeed their themes have to do with the horror in science. Dracula I think is all the more interesting then because it uses the science of its day, from blood transfusions to telegrams, to fight the horror from a superstitious age. ( )