The Primrose Path (Stoker novel)

The Primrose Path is an 1875 novel by Bram Stoker. It was the writer's first novel, published 22 years before Dracula and serialized in five installments in The Shamrock, a weekly Irish magazine, from February 6, 1875, to March 6, 1875.

The title has a Shakespearean origin. A primrose path is first referred to in Hamlet and in modern usage signifies a pleasant path that leads to ruin. In Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3, Ophelia castigates her brother, Laertes, not to be a hypocritical "ungracious pastor" who tells her to take the hard, virtuous path to heaven while he "Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads".

It is a "temperance tale" about Jerry O’Sullivan, a carpenter from Dublin who settles in London. Unable to find a good job, he becomes an alcoholic, falls into poverty, and is ravaged by jealousy. He ends up killing his wife and committing suicide.

In 1999, it was republished by Desert Island Books, an independent publisher based in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, founded in 1992 by Clive Leatherdale.