The Jewel of Seven Stars

By: Bram Stoker

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

"Hither the Gods come not at any summons. The Nameless One has insulted them and is forever alone. Go not nigh, lest their vengeance wither you away!"

The warning was inscribed on the entrance of the hidden tomb, forgotten for millennia in the sands of mystic Egypt. Then the archaeologists and grave robbers came in search of the fabled Jewel of Seven Stars, which they found clutched in the hand of the mummy. Few heeded the ancient warning, until all who came in contact with the Jewel began to die in a mysterious and violent way, with the marks of a strangler around their neck.

Now, in a bedroom filled with ancient relics, a distinguished Egyptologist lies senseless, stricken by a force that challenges human understanding. From beyond the grave Queen Tera is reaching out for the mysterious jewel that will bring her 5,000-year-old plan to fulfillment.

(P)2005 Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"Widely considered his best supernatural novel." (Times)

Mother of all Mummy-Stories

As far as I know the Jewel of the Seven Stars is the mother of all Mummy Stories (movies, etcetera). Being Egyptologist myself this of course is must-have literature. And I thoroughly enjoy Stoker's great story, again and again. I just love this book - great listen wherever you are.
The reading is very good, skilled and well told (though the actual audio quality could have been better).

A Classic Well Worth a Visit

This is an early 1900's classic and for a reason…not many people know that Bram Stoker wrote other good Horror stories other than Dracula, and this book was the original that inspired all those Hollywood "Tales of the Egyptian Mummy" genres. That said it was much better than I expected and was not at all like those original film plots, but rather had a sophistication that belied the film industries attempts to portray such stories, and a depth of knowledge about the rites of ancient Egypt that had me running to look up Abraham Stokers Bio! It built the suspense well and the characters, and It seems there were two endings and the original ending was too horrific for 1915 readers so it was softened and this is the 1915 ending but the original ending can still be read in Penguin editions. That said it was a cracking listen and the overly quaint language reflects a time gone by but also adds to the eerie “atmosphere”. A solid performance by Simon Vance.

More Stoker, please

I enjoyed this book from start to finish. Even if you are not particularly interested in Egyptology, it's a fantastic listen. Also recommended: Robert Whitfield's narration of "Dracula."

THIS IS THE ALTERED ENDING

the ending was altered in 1913 (maybe 1915) to be "less gruesome" I don't like the altered ending it renders the rest of the story fruitless.

Entertaining Story

Narration is well done. Story is an intriguing mystery with definite influence of turn-of-the-century fascination with all things Egyptian and the new fields of science. Held my interest for a long car trip.

The Jewel May Have Seven Stars, But…

I am of two minds here. While unable to endorse Amazon Customer’s enthusiastic “Wow!”, I can’t string along completely with Anonymous User (“A snore fest”) or Jessi (“Don’t waste your time”) either – though I do empathize with Tinkerbuff (“wrap it uuuuuup”).

In the end, I agree with Rowan (“A Classic Well Worth a Visit”). Worth it because, as Dorothea says, this is the “Mother of all Mummy-Stories”. As with Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera, or Stoker’s Dracula, coming to grips with the original of a much imitated, staged, filmed and parodied story frees it from all those adulterating pop-culture accretions. It’s like following a river to its source.

True, unlike those other three works, my patience was sorely tried here. And after all that waiting I expected a less sudden and unsatisfactory ending. The original, “gruesome” denouement may be more satisfying, but seeing as it adds another 4 chapters I think I’ll give it a miss. As the story stands now, a less talented narrator than Simon Vance might well have worn me out.

Not the original version

The Jewel of Seven Stars is a Bram Stoker (that Bram Stoker of Dracula fame) horror tale concerning the reanimating of an Egyptian mummy around the turn of the 20th century. An egyptologist falls into some type of trance. His semi-estranged daughter engages a friend (a lawyer) to assist and relates the tale. As the story surrounding the mummy unfolds, the assessment is that mummy herself created the conditions for her own reanimation some time in the future. Strange events occur, while several involved suspect the daughter who just happens to bear a striking resemblance to the original Egyptian queen is somehow behind it all. While largely lacking in gore, the psychological elements are juxtaposed to medical and police scientific methods ensuring a tension filled tale.

Stoker skillfully builds upon strange happenings while slowly dripping in the prior events leading to this aggregation of Egyptian artifacts and the analysis that has led to the supposition of a potential reanimated mummy. This is a definite bucket list tale in the horror genre category. The major ding to this version is that it's not the original published version.

The narration is skilly rendered setting the tone and mood for what is a dark, tense tale. Character distinction is reasonable with an excellent range of various accented British english.

Note: The version is NOT the original 1903 release. Publishers felt the ending was too gruesome (where everyone dies in the end). This version appears to be the 1912 re-release where chapter 16 (out of an original 20) was cut and the final chapter was changed with a happily ever after ending added. As there is no copyright on this work, the full story can be found online and the missing chapter and original ending can easily be obtained.

The lesser known work from Bram Stoker

The narrative is building up as you go through the chapters, which makes it extremely painful to stop listening. The audio is very well produced and this is one of the works I wouldn't have the patience to read but make an awesome listen.

i really wanted to like it but...

wow - i was excited about purchasing this book. i really wanted to like it. lots of promise with bram stoker as the author and a fun concept. it got worse as it went along. it is so wordy. everything is too pit pat put together. the characters almost become funny just over half way into the book - they are preposterous and too pompous. don't even know why i finished it. a promise of a good book that turned out to be one of my least favorite purchases.

Good stuff.

I enjoyed this listen. The narration was superb and it's a suspenseful story with historical mysticism. It was delightful.

NOT the original ending, but still v good

A fantastic reading of Jewel, but *sigh* as with most copies - book or otherwise - it is of course the re-worked ending. Stoker's publishers hated how he finished the original and demanded he re-write the final pages. I won't give spoilers for either ending, but.... *sigh* I do prefer the original.

Having said that, Jewel remains one of the most tense and breath-taking horror stories of all times; with Dracula, Stoker was among the first to popularize the vampire genre, and Queen Tera was the beginning of the mummy genre.

Read this

This book was a great read and it kept you guessing all the way through would recommend it to anyone who likes Egyptian history

Brilliant

Very enjoyable to listen to. Performance awesome.
Story awesome . Such timeless writing is mind blowing

Slow and boring (but wonderfully narrated)

Had this been read by anyone but the consummate Simon Vance I would have given up on this. I found it extremely slow and boring throughout - though Vance does a terrific job with poor material.
I can hardly believe this was written by the author of ‘Dracula’, which I think a tremendous novel. This, however, is lacking in incident, interest or character. Most of it is just the characters talking, and the two ‘events’ are exceptionally anti-climactic.
I was prepared to like this and am a little sad I couldn’t manage to. Well done, Mr Vance, for doing such a good job as to get me through it.

1912 Version

This is 1912 revised version with a very dull and pointless ending. Spoils a beautiful story. If you want to select this title, I recommend you find a copy of the original story.

Pretty dull with a anticlimactic ending

Beautifully narrated but, all in all, I was pleased that this was included in my membership. It passed the time while I did some sewing, but I shan't be listening to it again.

Curse of the mummy...

Our narrator, barrister Malcolm Ross, is sent a message by the girl he’s already well on the way to falling in love with, Margaret Trelawny, begging him to come to her aid. Her father has been attacked and seriously injured. Malcolm rushes to her side, as do the doctor and the police. Abel Trelawny’s physical injuries are severe but not life-threatening, but he is in a strange comatose condition. He has, oddly, left instructions on what must be done in just such an eventuality. He must not be removed from his room, which is full of Egyptian treasures he has “collected” from tombs, including several sarcophagi. And two people must watch over him each night. So Malcolm offers to stay at the house, and helps with the watching while carrying on his wooing. Slowly he and Margaret learn that her father has been studying one mummy in particular, Queen Tera, and believes that she had magical skills. He believes that she intends to come back from the dead, and Trelawny intends to help her…

This would have made a great short story or novella, but at full-novel length it’s incredibly over-stretched and repetitive. It’s well written, of course, and the narration from Simon Vance is great – it may in fact have been the only thing that got me through all the repetition. There are parts that are very good, like the flashback to when Trelawny and his associate stole – sorry, I mean “collected” – the contents of Tera’s tomb, including Tera herself! Then there are parts where Malcolm tells us for the umpteenth time all about how sweet his Margaret is, to the point where I was about ready to put an Egyptian curse on both of them myself.

However my desire to know what would happen when Trelawny carried out his experiment held my interest throughout. Who doesn’t love a resurrected mummy?? But what an anti-climax! After eight hours of listening, the experiment is packed into the last quarter of an hour, and the actual climax takes about two minutes! And I don’t mean to quibble, but the happy ending seemed wildly inappropriate to the big build-up! I had already learned from another review that the story apparently had two endings, so after I’d finished I did a bit of checking. It turns out the original ending from 1903 was far from happy – in fact, it was so bleak the publisher refused to reissue the book in 1912 unless Stoker altered it. So he did, and now the happy ending is the one most commonly used. I found a copy of the original online, and while it certainly suits the tone better and is more Stoker-ish, it’s just as rushed and tacked on at the last moment as the later ending. I seem to remember complaining about the abrupt way Dracula finishes too, so maybe it was a deliberate stylistic choice of Stoker’s to end stories this way, but it felt like an unsatisfactory pay-off after a lengthy (though mostly enjoyable) listen. 3½ stars for me, so rounded up.