Official Statement — Isaac Ben Jacob

Official Statement sent on 15 April 2012 by Isaac Ben Jacob and his wife to Bishop Seán Manchester regarding David Robert Donovan Farrant and the person calling herself "Della Farrant":.

"Me and my wife have discovered with a lot of surprise the existence of several blogs where we are notably being associated with David Farrant and his wife or girlfriend (I don't know if she is his wife or his girlfriend), whereas we have absolutely no contact with him, and we absolutely do not share his ideas.
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"I wish to underline that my wife met David Farrant once or twice during meetings, and that it was David Farrant who started to talk to her, whereas she didn't know anything about him or his past. We recently found out that the reason why David Farrant initially made contact with my wife was in order to manipulate us, and to make you believe she was Della. If you look closely at the pictures of Della [posted in blogs], you will notice that the Della shown on the photos is always hiding her face, and that she always takes a posture which does not allow anyone to determine exactly how tall she is.
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"I have attended a meeting myself three months ago, and I have seen Della and David Farrant together at this occasion. And when I tried to take a picture of them, Della immediately threw herself at me and my wife in order to force us to delete the photo from our camera.
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"We do not have any relation or contact with Della and David Farrant, and we don't want to be associated with these two persons in any way, shape or form, because they have a sulfurous past, they have a reputation of being Satanists, and they are acquainted with people like Jean-Paul Bourre, whom I don't want to hear about.
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"I know you have done research about me, and consequently you know I am an earnest academic researcher who uses scientific methods. Therefore you also know that I reject and condemn all magical practices, heretical deviancies, and obviously people, such as David Farrant, who have practised Satanism.
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"I think that you and I have been manipulated in this case, and that you could help us reestablish the truth."
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Source:
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http://therightreverendseanmanchester.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/official-statement-from-isaac-ben-jacob.html

Coming Soon: The Vampire In Europe

A new edition of Montague Summers' The Vampire in Europe will be published later in 2012.

This will be a special edition with freshly contributed additional material. Watch this space ...

Shadows In The Nave

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Shadows In The Nave: A Guide to the Haunted Churches of England 

[Paperback]

Paul Adams, Eddie Brazil & Peter Underwood (Authors)

Publisher: The History Press (2011)

Co-written by Bishop Seán Manchester's friend and colleague of many years, Peter Underwood, this haunted history of England's churches and chapels is brought vividly to life in this comprehensive and beautifully illustrated modern guide. Here you will encounter the world of the unseen linked with a thousand years of worship — including the Tudor phantom of Rycote, the lonely monk of Minsden Chapel and the sinister ghosts of Clophill, to name but a few. From the authors of The Borley Rectory Companion comes this eerie book, which covers seventy-five of the most notorious and lesser known of our haunted ecclesiastical buildings. Combining a wealth of historical and paranormal information with stunning original and atmospheric photographs, this volume is perfect for researchers and armchair ghost hunters alike. Paranormal historian Paul Adams and writer and photographer Eddie Brazil join Peter Underwood, the UK's most experienced ghost hunter and author of fifty books on the supernatural, in another literary partnership that will chill all but the sturdiest of hearts. 

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Out Of The Shadows

The Exorcist: Out of the Shadows

[Paperback]

Bob McCabe (Author)

Publisher: Omnibus Press: Re-issue edition (1999)

Bob McCabe is a movie buff who has written books about the work of Seán Connery and Terry Gilliam. He has also produced a rough guide to the comedy film genre. The Exorcist: Out of the Shadows, however, concerns itself with something much darker: the three films made about demonic possession in The Exorcist trilogy, but principally the first and by far the best of the three movies.

The 1973 horror film The Exorcist is probably one of the most effective ever made about demonic possession. Movie patrons and critics alike praise the film which is still considered to be one of the scariest ever made. The film is based on a William Peter Blatty novel, but the novel found its inspirations from a source based in reality, the exorcism of Robbie Mannheim.

Released around the time of The Exorcist's cinema re-release in the UK in 1998, preceding its long-awaited release on home video formats, it's an excellent overview of the making and release of this classic about the possession of a young girl. McCabe also includes small sections on the sequels, including Exorcist II: The Heretic, which is definitely very bizarre, and, of course, The Exorcist III.

Bob McCabe's The Exorcist: Out of the Shadows is an entertaining book about an interesting set of films.

In The Shadow Of The Vampire

In the Shadow of the Vampire:
Reflections from the World of Anne Rice

[Paperback]

Bob McCabe (Author)

Publisher: Thunder Mouth Press: Re-issue edition (1997)

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Award-winning documentary photographer Jana Marcus has always been drawn to the fringe. One of her earlier collections was entitled Midnight in Manhattan: A Decade of Subcultures and the Alternative Scene. Staying with that theme,  In the Shadow of the Vampire assembles portraits of and interviews with the devotees and acolytes of Anne Rice. And who are these people? Office administrators, translators, shop owners, students, and the more flamboyant (blood drinking vampiroids, assorted perverts, role-players etc).
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"Her books allow people to think about their place in society and identify their feelings through her characters' exploration of unconventional lifestyles," she opines. "It is extraordinary how many people I've spoken to who had never read a book before they read an Anne Rice novel." It might come as a culture shock to think of Anne Rice as an inadvertent champion of literacy! As may be expected, the reflections are a mixture of the banal and the more provocative. The phenomenon of Anne Rice's celebrity is, after all, phenomenal. The enormity of her appeal has given birth to the annual Gathering of The Coven Ball in New Orleans, cinema films, an Anne Rice tour company, a perfume line, a Lestat wine, and T-shirts emblasoned with an MRI of Rice's brain. If all that leaves the reader colder than sleeping alone in a coffin, then Goth-types and vampiroids might want to pick up a copy for tips on wardrobe and make-up.  

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Its easy to have preconceptions about this book, obsessed individuals and excessive make up immediately spring to mind. But this book is not like that. In fact this book is very touching. The people who have contributed in interviews and photographic portraits within this book represent a fair cross section of society. Their stories are told with feeling and honesty. Most write in some way about the way Anne Rice's books have reflected or have helped in some way with their lives. Many feel parallels with the loneliness or isolation of her vampire characters, but the message is not depressing for many more seem to have found a sense of belonging or uplift from the Anne Rice books. This book presents a range of characters to the reader with glimpses into each of their lives and finishes with a pictorial overview of the Memnoch Ball, New Orleans, annually held by Anne Rice.

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This book also gives a partial glance into the world of Anne Rice fans. However, it may affirm or disprove the notion that her fans are all weirdos. The book features college students, accountants, writers, exotic dancers, make-up artists etc. While it features intriguing people from all walks of life, it is probably not an entirely accurate view of her fans. The book perpetuates a certain fan stereotype, as though reading Anne Rice makes you estranged from the rest of society.  
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It has been noted by others that Anne Rice is mainstream. Admitting you are a fan is not a taboo like declaring you are a dominatrix. There are fans who never made it to the infamous Balls when they were still in progress; there are fans who have no interest in exploring New Orleans outside of the books; and there are fans who detest Goth subculture, but still devour every single book Anne Rice releases. It would have been a far more representative book had it featured a larger diversity of fans.
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However, the book is still wonderfully constructed. The photographs are nothing short of superb, the fan accounts fascinating to read, and one really does walk away feeling that maybe those stereotypes are wrong.
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"Photojournalist Marcus compiles the thoughts and moody, moony photos of a hundred attendees at Rice's annual Gathering of the Coven Ball. For every partygoer who enthuses about blood-drinking rituals, ten more thoughtfully grapple with Rice's work, persona, and commercialism (they're not thrilled with her Lestat-themed restaurant). This passionate subculture comes, if not quite alive, then certainly undead on the page." — Entertainment Weekly

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Klinger's Annotated Dracula

The New Annotated Dracula 

[Hardback]


Bram Stoker (Author) - Leslie S Klinger (Editor)

Publisher: W W Norton & Co (2008)

Travelling through two hundred years of popular culture and myth as well as graveyards and the wilds of Transylvania, Leslie S Klinger illuminates aspects of Bram Stoker's gothic novel, including an examination of the original typescript with its shockingly different ending. He investigates the many subtexts - from the masochistic, necrophilic, homoerotic and dentophilic implications of the story to its political, economic, feminist, psychological and historical threads. Employing his literary detective skills, Klinger mines this 1897 masterpiece for nuggets that will surprise even the most die-hard Dracula student and enthusiast.

The New Annotated Dracula is a feature-packed presentation of Bram Stoker's original 1897 novel, presented in its unabridged version, together with 1500 notes, maps, illustrations, points of history and trivia, excerpts from Stoker's edited additional material. In brief, everything the Dracula acionado could want in a volume, including additional chapters on Stoker's life, information on TV and Film versions of the story etc.

The editor has applied his brand of detective work to the Victorian novel about vampires that has no equal, and his edition is an extension of Stoker's attempt to give a work of fiction authenticity by telling it in the form of letters, diaries and such like. Examining their often faulty chronology has given commentators much entertainment. The notes are quite informative. For example, the hair-raising arrival of the Russian ship Demeter in Whitby harbour with the dead Captain lashed to the wheel was based on a real-life (but less unpleasant) incident from 1885. Bram Stoker, who made little money from his vampire novel, would have been surprised, but surely pleased, if he could have known what an impact it has had on our culture.

The illustrations, though interesting in themselves, however, are very poorly reproduced. This is a hefty tome, and the notes are informative for any scholar of Victorian literature. Less impressive are the essays on vampire films and subsequent literature which are little more than Klinger's personal taste and biased opinion. 

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The editor's conceit of taking the text as a factual narrative is at first amusing, but for some will be found ultimately unsatisifying. Leonard Wolf's 1975 edition is vastly superior in this regard, and somehow has an impact and atmospheric effect which Klinger's more recent effort does not achieve.

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Bram Stoker deserves to be taken more seriously as a writer in the Anglo-Irish tradition and a more precise approach to this great cultural influence is deserved. Klinger's edition will still appeal to many collectors.

Wolf's Annotated Dracula



The Annotated Dracula 

[Hardback]


Bram Stoker (Author) - Leonard Wolf (Editor)

Publisher: Crown (1975)

Leonard Wolf has been described as the world's most revered Dracula scholar. A native of Transylvania who left "the land beyond the forest" as a child, Wolf has taught and written about Bram Stoker's gothic masterpiece for decades. In 1975, he published The Annotated Dracula, which remains to this day the most elaborately annotated edition of the novel and has been the version found in  Bishop Seán Manchester's extensive private library since its publication.

The Annotated Dracula is a large book whose many illustrations and interesting notes are a pleasure to peruse. The text of Bram Stoker's Dracula is taken from the second printing of the first edition, with typos in tact. The annotations include over one hundred illustrations, drawings and monochrome photographs. Fifteen full-page drawings by the artist Sätty (Wilfried Podreich) are also featured. These are captivating expressionist interpretations of scenes from Dracula. All the illustrations are black and white.

Sadly, The Annotated Dracula has been out of print for some considerable time. Its latest incarnation is The Essential Dracula, a handsome softcover edition released in 2004. The Essential Dracula retains and, in some cases, augments the footnotes found in The Annotated Dracula, but dispenses with most of its illustrations, all of the Sätty drawings, and the Appendixes. For those who simply want the information contained in the notes, The Essential Dracula will suffice; though the notes border on microscopic and can be difficult to read. The Annotated Dracula, with its maps, charts, and abundant illustrations, is a far more elaborate edition.

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Leonard Wolf was born in Vulcan, Transylvania. There are two villages named "Vulcan" in Transylvania. They are known in German as Wolkendorf bei Kronstadt (Vulcan near Braşov) and Wolkendorf bei Schäßburg (Vulcan near Sighişoara). Which, we must ponder, does Wolf hail from? Wolf is best known for his authoritative works on horror genre literature and film. He was the editor of The Essential Frankenstein and The Essential Dracula and technical advisor on the early 1990s films Bram Stoker's Dracula and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Wolf is also a much-published writer of poetry, fiction, social history, and biography, and a leading translator of literature. His writing in the horror genre has twice been honoured with the Anne Radcliffe Award for Literature. His most recent book as an editor is The World According to Itzik: Selected Prose and Poetry, a compilation of the works of folk writer Itzik Manger. Leonard Wolf lives in New York City.

A native of Transylvania who left "the land beyond the forest" as a child, Wolf has taught and written about Bram Stoker's immortal novel for decades. 

The Annotated Dracula is a large book whose many illustrations and fascinating notes are a sheer pleasure to peruse. In his introduction, the author takes the reader on a tour of the traditions and circumstances from which Dracula eventually emerged at the hand of Bram Stoker. He discusses Gothic Romance literature, the vampire literature that preceded Dracula, Eastern European vampire folklore, Vlad Tepes (the 15th century Wallachian Prince from whom Count Dracula takes his name), and, finally, the life of the novel's enigmatic author, Bram Stoker. Annotations in the form of margin notes are found on most pages of the novel. Wolf has included explanations for every imaginable allusion in the text, as well as interesting personal comments. The reader receives quite a history lesson just reading the notes. Some of the most intriguing notes include: recipes for the Romanian dishes on which Jonathan Harker dines, population demographics for Transylvania in the late 19th century, translations of old Mr Swales' dialect, explanations of Victorian figures of speech, and the particulars of Victorian typewriters that Mina employs so frequently. Reading straight through the abundant notes might prove a too much for the average reader because reading them while following the novel can prove distracting. They are nevertheless ideal for afcionados, enthusiasts and students concentrating on one chapter or passage at a time and ceratinly add to the enjoyment of the novel when absorbed in moderate doses.

The Appendixes contain maps of Transylvania, Europe, England and Wales, Whitby, London, and the Zoological Gardens in London, with places from the novel marked. A calendar of incidents charts the events of the novel from May to November 1887 (the year Dracula takes place) in coherent form. Students and aficionados may appreciate "Dracula Onstage," a chart of Count Dracula's appearances in the novel, with page numbers. There is a Selected Filmography that includes notable Dracula films, 1922-1974, including films featuring the Count Dracula character, not necessarily based on Stoker's novel. British, American, and foreign-language editions of Dracula from 1897 to 1973 are also listed. There is an Index for the novel that is helpful but not comprehensive. The marvelously sinister etchings by Satty (of Ramparts and the Berkeley Barb), this reprints Brain Stoker's deathless (undead?) story with copious annotations and informative illustrations make this an absolutely essential collector's item. Trivia such as what a yew branch looks like, or a trephining apparatus, or to know the Orient Express connections to Bulgaria before 1894, along with all the rest of the weird and wonderful additions, serve to make Leonard Wolf's The Annotated Dracula the best edition in existence.