Better book than Dracula

[Abd_Yesua_alMasih]

Okay so the title is misleading.

I like old style books written in the 19th century. I have read Jane Austen et al. and for all those who would consider me a heretic let me throw in now that I want something a bit more heart pumping. I liked them, but I want to try something different.

I recently read Dracula and loved it. Just finished it this afternoon. Except for a STUPID editors note that gave away the end of the story in the third chapter it was the best book in a long time.

Anyone got any other old fashion good books that have passed the test of time that are thriller/action packed?

 

[tellville]

Here are a few recommendations:

Mary Shelley: Frankenstein
Sir Walter Scott: Ivan Hoe
Wilkie Collins: The Woman in White
Robert Louis Stevenson: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Henry James: The Turn of the Screw
GK Chesterton: The Man Who Was Thursday

 

[Abd_Yesua_alMasih]

Good they are all available in the local library

 

[Kim G]

Here are a few recommendations:

Mary Shelley: Frankenstein
Sir Walter Scott: Ivan Hoe
Wilkie Collins: The Woman in White
Robert Louis Stevenson: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Henry James: The Turn of the Screw
GK Chesterton: The Man Who Was Thursday

Those are all really great recommendations!

Have you read anything by Edgar Allan Poe? I think he'd meet your criteria. And if you want something a bit strange and overboard, try The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole. It's considered the first gothic novel. And it's weird.

 

[LawrenceU]

You are kidding when you say 'it's weird'.

 

[Kim G]

You are kidding when you say 'it's weird'.

I AM kidding or I am NOT kidding?

 

[LawrenceU]

Oops. NOT definitely NOT.

 

[sastark]

Have you read Sherlock Holmes? If not, get them. Read them. They are awesome!

 

[Theogenes]

I recommend James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder and The Deerslayer.

 

[Skyler]

Arsene Lupin, definitely. Particularly the "Herlock Sholmes"/"Holmlock Shears" ones.

Father Brown is good as well. And, of course, Sherlock Holmes.

 

[snap_dragon]

Hawthorne

House of the Seven Gables.


This is a recent book related to Dracula that you might give a go...

The Historian - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

-----Added 3/3/2009 at 11:43:10 EST-----

The Historian is a recent book but written in that vein (no pun intended) and I second the Poe recommendation.

 

[Claudiu]

I would recommend this list: Easton Press's "The 100 Greatest Books Ever Written" on Lists of Bests

-----Added 3/3/2009 at 11:49:55 EST-----

Okay so the title is misleading.

I like old style books written in the 19th century. I have read Jane Austen et al. and for all those who would consider me a heretic let me throw in now that I want something a bit more heart pumping. I liked them, but I want to try something different.

I recently read Dracula and loved it. Just finished it this afternoon. Except for a STUPID editors note that gave away the end of the story in the third chapter it was the best book in a long time.

Anyone got any other old fashion good books that have passed the test of time that are thriller/action packed?

Haha, I hate Dracula stuff. I'm a 100% Romanian, and when they turn Vlad Tepes (pretty much considered a hero) into Dracula it really sucks. My parents are from the Transylvania area.

 

[Augusta]

You MUST read Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan series. There are about 20 or so in the whole series but these are the first 4. I didn't realize there were so many I am going to have to read some more of them. They were done as comics also, which was an easy transition since Tarzan is just like a super hero with various abilities and strength.

-Tarzan of the Apes
-The Return of Tarzan
-The Beasts of Tarzan
-Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar

 

[LawrenceU]

Conan Doyle's work and Burrough's works are very good. You might also enjoy reading Zane Grey. If you want to read some riveting works on African hunting you can't beat Capstick.

 

[sastark]

House of the Seven Gables.


This is a recent book related to Dracula that you might give a go...

The Historian - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

-----Added 3/3/2009 at 11:43:10 EST-----

The Historian is a recent book but written in that vein (no pun intended) and I second the Poe recommendation.

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Please, no! Don't read The Historian! Horrible, terrible, awful book. Oh, I can't believe I read through all 656 pages of it. DON'T DO IT!

(and if you want to know why, I will let you know but it will spoil some of the plot for you)

 

[No Longer A Libertine]

I like the short stories of American Gothic writers like Washington Irving and Edgar Alan Poe.

Sleepy Hollow.
Rip Van Winkle.

The Cask of Amontillado
The Tale Tell Heart
The Pit and the Pendulum
Fall of the House of Usher
The Murders of Rue Morgue

 

[LadyCalvinist]

If you want 19th adventure books you might try:
G.A. Henty,
R. L. Stevenson (can't beat Treasure Island)
The Prisoner of Zenda and its sequel Rupert of Hentzau
R.M. Ballantyne (can get at R.M. Ballantyne Series and if you have never read A Tale of Two Cities, read I urge you to read it.
Also, there's The Count of Monte Cristo and the Four Musketeers.

 

[a mere housewife]

I second the Wilkie Collins -- he wrote a few novels, and almost anything by Stevenson is very ably written and very good. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a lot of adventurous stories: his professor Challenger books are less well known but I've enjoyed them (one of them, The Lost World, has been done very well into a movie) and I read this morning on Andrew's blog that he actually wrote a Hugenot adventure.

The Turn of the Screw and The Woman in White have also both been adapted to film, done extremely well, terribly scary.

You might also like things by Joseph Conrad? They aren't always mysteries but they are always adventures. You might also enjoy things like 'The Man Who Would Be King' by Rudyard Kipling (it might be in a collection of his short stories).

 

[No Longer A Libertine]

'The Scarlet Pimpernel' and 'King Solomon's Mines' are great fun as well.

 

[Abd_Yesua_alMasih]

That reminds me Conan Doyle would be a good read. He is a bit less in the fiction of horror than the others above. While something attracted me to Dracula as I read about some of these books I still get goose-bumps.

Thanks to all those who gave suggestions. I am making a long list of all of them now.

Maybe I missed it but what about the Hunchback of Notre Dame? I only ever saw the movie but I understand it is a book. Has anyone read it? What is the style?

-----Added 3/3/2009 at 02:32:22 EST-----

'The Scarlet Pimpernel' and 'King Solomon's Mines' are great fun as well.

Wasn't King Solomon's Mines one of the best selling books of the nineteenth century?

 

[sastark]

That reminds me Conan Doyle would be a good read. He is a bit less in the fiction of horror than the others above. While something attracted me to Dracula as I read about some of these books I still get goose-bumps.

Conan Doyle is not horror, but certainly suspenseful. I read the two volume The Complete Sherlock Holmes so quickly because I couldn't put it down.

 

[py3ak]

Sheridan LeFanu has some horror type things in the Dracula vein. If you can deal with H. Rider Haggard's bad writing, many have found him enjoyable escapism (I haven't).

The Hunchback of Notre Dame is by Victor Hugo. Hugo is very good, but I wouldn't expect much pulse-pounding from him.

 

[tellville]

Also, there's The Count of Monte Cristo

 

[Pergamum]

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness

 

[Abd_Yesua_alMasih]

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness

Oh yes I read this. It was not bad but it took a while to get used to his English.

-----Added 3/4/2009 at 01:44:47 EST-----

I have now spent more time than ever before going through my university English department library section to find these books. Sort of depressing how unacademic they are. Maybe it is just my university but they need to shape up there act if these critical analysis are the sorts of things they produce/put in their library.

 

[MrMerlin777]

Some folks are into H.P Lovecraft for the gothic horror type thing. I never got into him though.

He is 20th century though.

 

[snap_dragon]

Historian

I stand by the Historian...read various other reviews via New York Times or Amazon. I am going to mention another recent author even though he writes like the old timers and that is Ian Pears. Also, Caleb Carr's the Alienist.

I know you didn't ask for recent so you can always disregard this post.

 

[Montanablue]

I'm going to third Wilkie Collins and recommend The Moonstone in particular. Its one of my favorite books of all time. I wouldn't start out by reading his Blind Love, although its interesting, its not as much of a suspense/thriller/mystery as his others.