The book is an epistolary novel, narrated in the first person via letters and diary extracts from various characters, but mainly Rupert. The initial sections, leading up to the reading of the uncle's will, told by other characters, suggest that Rupert is the black sheep of the family, and the conditions of having to live in the castle in the Blue Mountains for a year before he can permanently inherit the unexpectedly large million-pound estate suggest the uncle is somehow testing the heir.

Author Biography

Abraham "Bram" Stoker (1847 - 1912) was an Irish author, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula. During his lifetime, he was better known as the personal assistant of actor Henry Irving and business manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London, which Irving owned. Stoker was bedridden with an unknown illness until he started school at the age of seven, when he made a complete recovery. Of this time, Stoker wrote, "I was naturally thoughtful and the leisure of long illness gave opportunity for many thoughts which were fruitful according to their kind in later years."