Abraham Stoker, almost always called “Bram,” is best known now as the author of Dracula, but the famous vampire is not Stoker’s only novel. What else did Bram Stoker write, and is it worth reading?
In chronological order, Bram Stoker’s published works are:
The Primrose Path
The Snake’s Pass
The Watter’s Mou’
The Shoulder of Shasta
Dracula
Miss Betty
The Mystery of the Sea
The Jewel of the Seven Stars
The Man/The Gates of Life
Lady Athlyne
The Lady of the Shroud
The Lair of the White Worm
Let’s leave Dracula aside for a moment at look at the genre of these novels.
Genre
The Primrose Path is a temperance novel. It is moralistic and sensationalist, and it’s about a man who drinks to much and murders his wife.
Some of Bram Stoker’s novels are in the Romance genre
Romance
All of these novels are either romance or hybrid romance (that is, horror-romance or mystery-romance) novels:
The Snake’s Pass
The Watter’s Mou’
The Shoulder of Shasta
Miss Betty
The Man/The Gates of Life
Lady Athlyne
The Lady of the Shroud
The most straightforwardly romance among these are probably The Watter’s Mou’, The Shoulder of Shasta, and Miss Betty. The Snake’s Pass is historical romance with supernatural elements and features St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland. The Man, which is also called The Gates of Life, and Lady Athlyne and The Lady of the Shroud are all horror-romance.
Horror
Some of Bram Stoker’s novels are in the Horror genre.
Other than Dracula, Stoker’s most outright-horror novels are:
The Jewel of the Seven Stars
The Man/The Gates of Life
Lady Athlyne
The Lady of the Shroud
The Lair of the White Worm
The Jewel of the Seven Stars features mummies, The Lair of the White Worm features a monstrous worm, possibly the descendant of dragons, and the other three all feature mysterious suspense and the possibility of the undead.
Mystery
The Mystery of the Sea, The Lady of the Shroud, and to a slightly lesser extent Lady Athlyne and The Man/The Gates of Life are all mysteries.
What is worth reading?
None of these novels has the critical or literary reputation of Dracula, but all of them have themes and ideas in common with Stoker’s best-known work, and without the benefit of history I don’t think Dracula would stand out among a bibliography of Gothic romance, horror, and mystery. The Snake’s Pass, The Mystery of the Sea, The Jewel of the Seven Stars, Lady Athlyne, and The Lady of the Shroud are probably all worth reading, especially if what you expect from them is a light Victorian Gothic. I wouldn’t exactly recommend The Man, but it is interesting as an exploration of Victorian attitudes towards gender: a central character is a girl named “Stephen” and raised with “masculine values.” The Lair of the White Worm is famously bad, and I wouldn’t recommend any of Stoker’s other novels.
Success
Of Bram Stoker’s bibliography, Dracula was his most critically successful novel during his life, but none was very commercially successful. In his life he was a mildly popular writer, and he was better known as the friend and manager of actor Sir Henry Irving. Commercially, Stoker’s most successful book was non-fiction: a biography of Irving called Personal Reminiscences of Sir Henry Irving.