The Lair of the White Worm

The Lair of the White Worm (1911) is a novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. Published only a year before Stoker's death, The Lair of the White Worm helped to establish the Irish master of Gothic horror's reputation as a leading writer of the early-twentieth century. The novel is partly based on the legend of the Lambton Worm, a story from popular English folklore dating back to at least the 14th century.

In 1860, an Australian named Adam Salton is contacted by his great-uncle, who invites him to make a visit to England. Arriving by boat in Southampton, Salton is greeted by the elderly Richard, who surprisingly names him heir of the family estate in Derbyshire. When he gets to Lesser Hill, he is quickly overwhelmed by terrifying and mysterious events. His neighbor, Edgar Cawall, is a strange man obsessed with mesmerism and protecting his crops from pigeons. At his own estate, Salton is forced to use mongooses to combat an infestation of black snakes. Meanwhile, a local woman named Arabella March appears to be involved in a series of strange disappearances rumored to have something to do with the legendary White Worm, an ancient creature haunting the landscape of rural Derbyshire. The Lair of the White Worm is a gripping work of Gothic horror by Bram Stoker, the secretive and vastly underrated creator of Dracula, one of history's greatest villains.

With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Bram Stoker's The Lair of the White Worm is a classic of Irish literature reimagined for modern readers.

Bram Stoker (1847-1912) was an Irish novelist. Born in Dublin, Stoker suffered from an unknown illness as a young boy before entering school at the age of seven. He would later remark that the time he spent bedridden enabled him to cultivate his imagination, contributing to his later success as a writer. He attended Trinity College, Dublin from 1864, graduating with a BA before returning to obtain an MA in 1875. After university, he worked as a theatre critic, writing a positive review of acclaimed Victorian actor Henry Irving's production of Hamlet that would spark a lifelong friendship and working relationship between them. In 1878, Stoker married Florence Balcombe before moving to London, where he would work for the next 27 years as business manager of Irving's influential Lyceum Theatre. Between his work in London and travels abroad with Irving, Stoker befriended such artists as Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, Hall Caine, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In 1895, having published several works of fiction and nonfiction, Stoker began writing his masterpiece Dracula (1897) while vacationing at the Kilmarnock Arms Hotel in Cruden Bay, Scotland. Stoker continued to write fiction for the rest of his life, achieving moderate success as a novelist. Known more for his association with London theatre during his life, his reputation as an artist has grown since his death, aided in part by film and television adaptations of Dracula, the enduring popularity of the horror genre, and abundant interest in his work from readers and scholars around the world.