This edition includes the editor's reflection: “Was "The Lair of the White Worm" written under the influence of hallucinogenic elements?”
First published in 1911, “The Lair of the White Worm” is Bram Stoker's twelfth and final novel. Partly based on the Lambton worm it is a horror story that features a giant white worm that can transform into a woman.
The central character is Adam Salton, an Australian at the outset living there, who in 1860 is contacted by his elderly great-uncle, Richard Salton, a landed gentleman of Lesser Hill (England,) who has no other family and wants to establish a relationship with the only other living member of the Salton family. Although Adam has already made his own fortune in Australia, he enthusiastically agrees to meet his uncle, and on his arrival by ship at Southampton the two men quickly become good friends. His great-uncle then reveals that he wishes to make Adam the heir to his estate, Lesser Hill. Adam travels there and quickly finds himself at the centre of mysterious events, with Sir Nathaniel de Salis, a friend of Richard Salton's, as his guide…
Together with “Dracula” and “The Jewel of Seven Stars”, “The Lair of the White Worm” is one of Stoker's most popular novels. It was adapted into a 1988 British horror film starring Hugh Grant and Amanda Donohoe.
