The Lair of the White Worm

The white worm slithers beneath Derbyshire's ancient hills, and Bram Stoker, that master of Victorian dread, digs it up one last time. Written in 1911, the year before his death, this is Stoker playing with the old country legend of the Lambton Worm, a dragon that haunts the land, feeding on the descendants of those who wronged it. When young Adam Salton arrives from Australia to claim his inheritance, he steps into a nest of secrets: a sinister estate called Castra Regis, a family curse, and Lady Arabella March, beautiful and utterly inhuman. Stoker weaves Roman history, local legend, and creeping dread into something that feels less like Dracula and more like an old campfire tale told too well. There are black snakes on the lawn, a mad mesmerist chasing a reluctant lover, and a giant kite rigged to hunt birds that everyone insists are omens. The white worm waits below, patient and ancient, wearing a woman's face. For readers who want Gothic horror with a folkloric heart, and don't mind a creator working in strange, late-career territory.