 | The Snake''s Pass: A Critical Edition In 1890, The Snake's Pass was published in serialized form in the periodical The People . It is the story of Arthur Severn, an Englishman who has inherited wealth and a title through an aunt who took him under her wing to the exclusion of closer relations. His inheritance includes land in Ireland, and now that he is a man of leisure, he decides to tour the west of Ireland. As Bram Stoker's first full-length novel, The Snake's Pass is a heady blend of romance, travel narrative, adventure tale, folk tradition, and national tale. This early novel shows that, long before Dracula, Stoker used the genre of the novel to engage with questions of identity, gender, ethnic stereotype, and imperialism. Lisabeth C. Buchelt is associate professor in the English Department at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. |
