Bram Stoker, the master of horror and dark mind behind the most famous vampire novel in history—Dracula—brings us to the edge of our chairs again with a tale of a different variety. Here the horrors are not vampires, nor are they werewolves. Here the horrors are poverty and vicious, snarling rats. A young man finds himself (foolishly) wandering beyond the city walls of 1850s Paris, making his way into the dust piles and garbage gatherings of the paupers. Living among the rags and the war-torn are giant, beady eyed rats. Hideous beasts that clean a dead (or dying) human body down to its skeleton before the flesh is even cold.
Add to that a swampy quagmire and some curious psychic insights, and you have a masterful tale of the macabre that is not for the feint of heart.
Abraham “Bram” Stoker (1847-1912), an Irish novelist, surprisingly never visited Eastern Europe, the setting for his most famous and widely read work Dracula (1897). Stoker, known during his lifetime as the acting and then business manager of the famous Henry Irving’s Lyceum Theatre, is now best remembered as a writer of Gothic horror fiction.
Varla Ventura is the author of Varla Ventura’s Paranormal Parlor: Ghosts, Seances and Tales of True Hauntings, as well as Fairies, Pookas, and Changelings: A Complete Guide to the Wild & Wicked Enchanted Realm, along with several other books on spooky ooky stuff. She can often be found lurking about the deep dark woods, lakes, streams and parlors on the hunt for beastly things and hidden history. Visit her online at www.varlaventura.net