The Lair of the White Worm: Horror and Romance

Bram Stoker

Oct 2015 · Horror and Romance Book 4 · 谷月社

About this ebook

Adam Salton sauntered into the Empire Club, Sydney, and found awaiting him a letter from his grand-uncle.  He had first heard from the old gentleman less than a year before, when Richard Salton had claimed kinship, stating that he had been unable to write earlier, as he had found it very difficult to trace his grand-nephew’s address.  Adam was delighted and replied cordially; he had often heard his father speak of the older branch of the family with whom his people had long lost touch.  Some interesting correspondence had ensued.  Adam eagerly opened the letter which had only just arrived, and conveyed a cordial invitation to stop with his grand-uncle at Lesser Hill, for as long a time as he could spare.

“Indeed,” Richard Salton went on, “I am in hopes that you will make your permanent home here.  You see, my dear boy, you and I are all that remain of our race, and it is but fitting that you should succeed me when the time comes.  In this year of grace, 1860, I am close on eighty years of age, and though we have been a long-lived race, the span of life cannot be prolonged beyond reasonable bounds.  I am prepared to like you, and to make your home with me as happy as you could wish.  So do come at once on receipt of this, and find the welcome I am waiting to give you.  I send, in case such may make matters easy for you, a banker’s draft for £200.  Come soon, so that we may both of us enjoy many happy days together.  If you are able to give me the pleasure of seeing you, send me as soon as you can a letter telling me when to expect you.  Then when you arrive at Plymouth or Southampton or whatever port you are bound for, wait on board, and I will meet you at the earliest hour possible.”

Old Mr. Salton was delighted...

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About the author

 Stoker visited the English town of Whitby in 1890 and that visit is said to be part of the inspiration of his great novel Dracula. While manager for Henry Irving and secretary and director of London's Lyceum Theatre, he began writing novels, beginning with The Snake's Pass in 1890 and Dracula in 1897. During this period, Stoker was part of the literary staff of the The Daily Telegraph in London, and wrote other fiction, including the horror novels The Lady of the Shroud (1909) and The Lair of the White Worm (1911). In 1906, after Irving's death, he published his Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving, which proved successful, and managed productions at the Prince of Wales Theatre.

Before writing Dracula Stoker met Ármin Vámbéry, a Hungarian writer and traveler. Dracula likely emerged from Vámbéry's dark stories of the Carpathian mountains. Stoker then spent several years researching European folklore and mythological stories of vampires.

Dracula is an epistolary novel, written as a collection of realistic, but completely fictional, diary entries, telegrams, letters, ship's logs, and newspaper clippings, all of which added a level of detailed realism to the story, a skill Stoker had developed as a newspaper writer. At the time of its publication, Dracula was considered a "straightforward horror novel" based on imaginary creations of supernatural life. "It gave form to a universal fantasy . . . and became a part of popular culture."

According to the Encyclopedia of World Biography, Stoker's stories are today included in the categories of "horror fiction", "romanticized Gothic" stories, and "melodrama." They are classified alongside other "works of popular fiction" such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein,:394 which, according to historian Jules Zanger, also used the "myth-making" and story-telling method of having "multiple narrators" telling the same tale from different perspectives. "'They can't all be lying,' thinks the reader."...