The Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker - Book Review

The Lair of the White Worm is Bram Stoker’s far less popular novel, compared to Dracula. It was also his last. It’s about a man named Adam Salton and takes place in the English countryside in Derbyshire. Adam’s uncle summons Adam to England from Australia to make Adam his heir. They become good friends. Adam is introduced to the local haughty type of aristocrats, and then strange things start to happen. Everyone is eccentric in Bram Stoker’s usual style.

They discover that someone has been murdering children and animals, and eventually decide it’s the woman Arabella who lives in Diana’s Grove in their community of rich people. Sir Nathaniel takes on the role of monster hunter and claims Arabella is the fabled White Worm. The rest of the book is Adam trying to destroy the White Worm and a whole slew of other nonsense with the completely strange characters. There are a lot of scenes with mongooses.

It’s not Stoker’s best. It’s maybe his third most popular, but not his best. This book reads slowly and often confusing. Maybe it’s an old language. I found myself bored the entire time. I got confused because I didn’t understand who was who, or even what was going on. There are a man and a chest, another guy who’s supposed to be like Van Helsing.

A lot of the book talks about a mongoose. It has some seriously aggressive racist tones (but that is pretty normal for a book published in 1911). And by the end of the book, you don’t really care what’s happening.

The final scene is predictable. Everyone is mad. I give it a 6/10, even for its time of creation. It was probably a really good book in 1911, but in 2020 it just makes no sense to read something so old and dull.