The Shoulder of Shasta

The Shoulder of Shasta is a romance novel by Bram Stoker written in 1895. It was published two years before the release of Stoker's Dracula. Stoker believed in progress and took a keen interest in science and science-based medicine. Some Stoker novels, such as The Lady of the Shroud (1909), represent early examples of science fiction. He had a writer's interest in the occult, notably mesmerism, but despised fraud and believed in the superiority of the scientific method over superstition. Stoker counted J. W. Brodie-Innis, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, among his friends and hired member Pamela Colman Smith as an artist for the Lyceum Theatre, but no evidence suggests that Stoker ever joined the Order himself.