Home » Doom & Gloom » Library

We have searched near and far to gather tales from a cross the land and mysterious ocean just for you. I am so glad you arrived here. In a time when pen and paper are a thing of the past, replaced by emails and text messages. When video games have taken over for the imagination.

We have for you food for thought. Go on a journey, raid tombs, travel across exotic jungles, drink water from a leaf in a tropical rain forest and ride a Dromedary Camel across the Arabian Desert in search of treasure, without ever leaving your room!

Would you prefer reading a great book over playing football? When all your friends are at the mall, do you simply want to hang out with Anne Rice? When everyone went to see Zodiac did you stay behind because you wanted to read the book by Robert Graysmith? When Great Expectations came out starring Ethan Hawk and Gwyneth Paltrow did you have to tell everyone that the film was based on a novel by Charles Dickens?

Do you know how one of the best Gothic novels came about? Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was written on a bet to see who could come up with the best ghost story. There is a great book written about this night called "The Monsters" by Dorothy Hoobler and Thomas Hoobler. The Hooblers theoriesed that there was a curse bestowed upon everyone in the villa on that creative summer night.

Interesting Facts about Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein:

It's the most famous "dark and stormy night" in literary history. Every English major knows the story of the June 17, 1816, house party at the Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva, where five young English people playfully vied with one another to tell a ghost story. The soap-operatic cast of characters is irresistible. The charismatic leader of the group (and also the initiator of the contest) was Lord Byron, the foremost celebrity of the age, a bestselling poet, talented, handsome, rich, witty, titled, Byron had brought with him as paid companion a young doctor (Byron's erratic crash dieting sometimes endangered his health), John William Polidori, 21, who was also an aspiring litterateur. The third man of the group, Percy Bysshe Shelley, 23, was a decidedly radical (though always emotional) thinker who had recently begun to publish his own poetry.

Mary had what was to be known as a the most famous waking nightmare. On the night prior to this nightmare she had been invloved in a discussion about a subject from de Stael's De l'Allemagne: "whether the principle of life could be discovered and whether scientists could galvanize a corpse of manufactured humanoid".

Mary Shelley's account of her nightmare:

"I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life...His success would terrify the artist; he would rush away...hope that...this thing...would subside into dead matter...he opens his eyes; behold the horrid thing stands at his bedside, opening his curtains..."

It was the next morning that Mary Shelley was ready to complete the task of writing one the best frightening stories ever told.

On this same night the birth of the Civilized vampire was created. With the vampire, Gothic scholars and serious horror fans know that the modern concept of the arrogant, elegant, moody, aristocratic, malicious, sensual predator who has come to seem the one true vampire was in fact invented by Polidori in The Vampyre, published in 1819, with its antihero modeled so obviously on Lord Byron as to invite a lawsuit. Folktales about vampires -- crude animalistic blood-suckers, not so different from werewolves -- had been around for centuries, but Polidori, whose talent Byron had cruelly derided, changed this image completely, delivering a sharp, lurid social caricature of his tormentor. Lest anyone miss the point, his vampire was called Lord Ruthven -- the name that Lady Caroline Lamb, Byron's scorned lover, had given to her own caricature of him in her bestseller about their steamy affair, Glenarvon. To further complicate matters, Polidori's vampire tale was based on a fragment that Byron had scribbled out as his contest entry, and many people thought he had written Polidori's novel. In any case, all the famous vampires that followed, from Bram Stoker's Dracula (who didn't appear until 1897) to Anne Rice's Lestat and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Saint-Germain, draw their lineage from Polidori's portrait of Byron. ~ Alice K Turner of Washington Post

These are some of the ineresting facts you will learn. Book mark this page and check in with us to see what book we feature.

We invite you to get lost in the many adventures that our book club has to offer!

Library Archives

The Book of Lost Things

By John Connlly

Article by Veronica Mihalopoulos

The Book of Lost Things is a book based on fiction about a boy named David who struggles with his mom's slow death, his father’s speedy remarriage, a new step mother and the birth of his half brother Georgie. The story takes place in England during World War II. David was very close to his mother. She taught David the love of books. David began to read at a young age this helped create a strong bond between our world and the world inside of books. He let his imagination get lost in the pages of a good book. This is something that David shared with his mother during her last few months before her death. She always read him stories when he was not able to read for himself. He would read to her regardless of whether or not she was awake. He wanted to help her escape the room and body that now held her captive.

I would describe David as a very peculiar boy. He had rituals or task he would complete without fail. He believed that by doing these things he could somehow buy his mother some time with him. If only he were a good boy fate would be on his side.

Here is sample reading from Chapter 1:

"Of All That Was Found and All That Was Lost"

"The boy, whose name was David, did everything that he could to keep his mother alive. He prayed. He tried to be good, so that she would not be punished for his mistakes. He padded around the house as quietly as he was able, and kept his voice down when he was playing war games with his toy soldiers. He created a routine, and he tried to keep to that routine as closely as possible, because he believed in part that his mother's fate was linked to the actions he performed. He would always get out of bed by putting his left foot on the floor first, then his right. He always counted up to twenty when he was brushing his teeth, and he always stopped when the count was completed. He always touched the faucets in the bathroom and the handles of the doors a certain number of times: odd numbers were bad, but even numbers were fine, with two, four, and eight being particularly favorable, although he didn't care for six because six was twice three and three was the second part of thirteen, and thirteen was very bad indeed" - John Connlly "The Book of Lost Things"

Once David's mother died it was not long before his father remarried. This was not a transition that would go over smoothly. David's father had to break the news that not only was he getting remarried 6 months after his mother's death, but they would also be moving to Rose's home. This is where the story gets especially interesting.

Rose's home is located in the country and has belonged to her family for a very long time. This home is surrounded by a garden called the Sunken Garden. As a way to warm up to David she gave him her uncle's old room which had not been disturbed since his strange disappearance. Rose thought David would be able to appreciate the many old books that her uncle loved to read. David does not like his half brother Georgie, or the constant attention he needs. David feels like he no longer has a place in his father's new life and wants to escape the feelings that he has.

Strange things begin to happen to David. It all begins with the books whispering to him. Then the fainting spells and the appearance of a strange shadowy figure that appeared in his bedroom. One night David is drawn to the Sunken Garden by his mother's voice. It is here where he notices a German bomber heading straight for him from the sky. He seeks refuge inside of a crack in the wall of the garden.

David is immediately taken into a world where fantasy and all of the fairy tales he ever read become a reality. This new world is by no means a Disney movie. David is pushed into a mode where he must learn to survive and fend for himself if he is to make it out alive. He must escape a legion of werewolves, strange creatures from the depths of the imagination and the Crooked Man if he is to get to the king that posesses the knowledge of how to return David home.

Copyright © 2004 - 2007 Bleeding Edge All rights reserved. Bleeding Edge offers BEGoth collectible dolls, gothic toys, sexy action figures and
comic books for teens and adults of all ages. Contact us with questions at 800-617-3883.
Legal Information

Goths Collector Dolls | Collectible Gothic Toys | Collectible Gothic Figures