The Gothic Poets Society discussion

Started reading more of Bram Stokers works the other day and have been thoroughly impressed with his short stories from Dracula's Guest. Considering I had only up to this point read Dracula and although it was a good story it lacked something, a punch if you ask me. Has anybody else read anything else by him? What do you think of his other works. Open to talking about anything he has written.

Honestly I thought Bram Stoker's Dracula was a dull read despite the fact that millions have enjoyed it and many a franchise has been based upon it. I would, however, be interested in giving it a second go in the near future.

Bram Stoker will always be known for Dracula. I honestly cannot name any of his other works non-Dracula related off the top of my head. I am sure he wasn't just what we'd call a one hit wonder and perhaps sometime I will give another one of his works a read.

Well he did write a few vampire books. I read Dracula's Guest and I found the stories in it far superior than to his Dracula novel. I think there five vampire books in total?? off the top of my head. Eventually I will get to reading them.

I actually did a piece on Stoker and his other works on my Hundred year Old Horror blog in the other Horror groups here on Goodreads. Here is the post which talks about several of his other notable works:

I thought I’d go back and do another piece on Bram Stoker. We all know Stoker for his and one of horror’s most notorious novels “Dracula” but what about his other works? How do they fair? When I first started this Stoker was one of the first people I analyzed and I put him up against some tough competition but now the analysis is solely based on him and works not entitled “Dracula”. First let’s get a little rundown on Mr. Stoker. He was born in 1847 in Dublin Ireland. He was the third of seven children. In 1876 he wrote a non-fiction book and worked for a newspaper in Ireland which was owned by fellow author J. Sheridan Le Fanu. When he married in 1878 he was formally with Oscar Wilde. Aside from being a well known author Stoker was the business manager of a Theatre in London which he fan for 27 years. His inspiration of Dracula was of course based on Romanian hero and General Vlad the Impaler who was known for impaling his victims along with other crazy torture tactics. Blood Queen Elizabeth Bathory who bathed in the blood of virgins was also inspiration behind Dracula. So what are some of Stoker’s other works and how do they fair? Let us take a look.

The first book listed on Goodreads for Stoker that’s not Dracula would be Lair of the White Worm which is considered one of his most enduring works and a great horror novel of literature. Some of his other works include The Snake's Pass, The Mystery of the Sea, The Jewel of Seven Stars and The Lady of the Shroud. I picked the other four because I found them on Valancourt Books whom of course I refer to often with their excellent selection of classic horror novels. So as I took these five novels I put them together and came up with an overall rating of 3.31 which is below the average of 3.51. This is due to the fact that out of the five books only two rank above 3.5 those being The Snake’s Pass and The Mystery of the Sea. This doesn’t mean for a second that Stoker’s other novel’s should not be considered in fact they should be, this only means that my analysis of five of his works together clearly do not show his work averaging out to how they truly should be shown. Stoker’s Goodreads rating is a solid 3.91 however without looking I can assume that much of the rating is based off of a dozen versions of Dracula. Personally I am curious and you should be too of Stoker’s other works which is why I’d recommend checking out some of the books I’ve listed and talked about.

So what do we know after this? Well for one Bram Stoker was no one trick pony or one hit wonder although it would seem and does feel that way at times. This is not out fault but literature’s for making Dracula so profound and his other works less known. If you’re a fan of his then your no stranger to the works of his to which I’ve listed but if you are in the dark about Stoker then let this shine a light to you and show you that Stoker was quite a prolific horror writer of his time. His novels should be read with great eagerness and as much as one would give Dracula but get that novel out of your mind and focus on Stoker’s other works. If you would like to read more on the great Bram Stoker then check out this site on him at http://www.bramstoker.org/

I am aware of some of his other work, but I don't think I've read anything else by him. Valancourt Books looks fab and will definitely broaden my gothic literature choices. Not sure off the top of my head what the British equivalent would be...

Yeah Valsncourt Books is great and some of Stokers works other than Dracula sound pretty good.