Check out the book that outsold "Dracula"

Bram Stoker was a lucky author, in that his now-classic novel, Dracula, was a bestseller in its time.

(That isn’t always the case; just ask Herman Melville.)

However, Stoker — who died on this day in 1912 — wasn’t the top spooky story when it was released in 1897.

That book, shared with us courtesy of Literary Hub, was The Beetle, by Richard Marsh.

What and who? Exactly; Stoker got the last laugh, as The Beetle was out of print after 1960 (until recently, that is).

Learn more about the novel that outsold Dracula by six to one, yet doesn’t appear in many curricula, on Lit Hub.