The Burial of the Rats #915728

Abraham Stoker (1847-1912), better known by his pen name Bram Stoker, was an Irish theatre manager, writer, novelist and Freemason. He became famous as the author of Dracula (1897), an epistolary Gothic horror novel widely considered a landmark in vampire literature. The work deeply influenced future representations of fictional vampiric characters, and Stoker came to be regarded by many as "the father of vampire fiction".
The Burial of the Rats, the short horror story by Bram Stoker which we offer to our readers today, was first published in the United Kingdom in the January 26, 1896 and February 2, 1896 issues of Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, London. It was first published in book form in 1914 in Stoker's third collection of short stories Dracula's Guest And Other Weird Stories.
The Burial of the Rats, follows a narrator who, separated from his father and love interest after a mysterious encounter, is forced to navigate a dangerous, labyrinthine district of Paris ruled by a macabre group of ancient, skeletal figures who utilize a horde of rats to menace him. The story is an early work of Stoker's, notable for its chilling depiction of primal fear and survival, and for the way it uses the setting of a chaotic, refuse-filled district to explore themes of societal decay and the thin line between civilization and instinct.