Description

The Lady of the Shroud by Bram Stoker

Trade Paperback – Valancourt Books – 2012 – 329 pages

Old Roger Melton has died, leaving behind one of the greatest fortunes in Europe. His arrogant relative Ernest Melton expects to be the heir, but much to the family’s surprise Roger leaves his vast estate to his obscure young nephew, Rupert Sent Leger. But Rupert’s newfound wealth comes with strange conditions attached, one of which is that he must inhabit the old castle of Vissarion in the remote Balkan nation known as the Land of the Blue Mountains.

Rupert, an intrepid adventurer, agrees and travels to Vissarion with his Aunt Janet, who possesses the occult power of Second Sight. But all is not as it seems at Vissarion. Rupert finds himself visited by a ghostly woman clothed in a burial shroud who sleeps in a tomb. Haunted by her strange beauty, Rupert wonders whether she is a phantom, a vampire, or something else entirely. He is determined to solve this mystery, but the solution is even more dangerous than he could possibly imagine!

First published in a now scarce edition in 1909, The Lady of the Shroud is one of Stoker’s most popular supernatural novels and a worthy successor to Dracula (1897). Often reprinted in severely abridged editions, The Lady of the Shroud returns to print in this new edition, containing the original unabridged text, together with a new introduction by Sarah E. Maier, annotations, the text of contemporary reviews, a chronology of Bram Stoker’s life and works, a bibliography, and Stoker’s important 1908 article “The Censorship of Fiction.”