to her independence. However, it is implied by the presence of Tera's burial robe in her place that Tera lives and escapes from her male captors, suggesting a more positive outcome for the New Woman. In stark contrast, the 1912 edition drastically revises the ending: Tera dies instead and Margaret and Malcolm are married. According to Andrew Smith, "The first ending suggests Stoker’s inability properly to control the rebellious aspects of the Female Gothic, whereas the second, as in Dracula, implies the possibility of exerting social control through marriage". Critical reception Much like Dracula, which received very little critical attention until the late 1960s, The Jewel of Seven Stars had a very underwhelming response from nineteenth-century critics. When the novel was released in 1903, critics and readers were generally left confused by the story; one review stated that readers would "curdle their blood" and "addle their brains" trying to understand "this most extraordinary story". A London newspaper, The Saturday Review, was even less positive: "This book is not one to be read in a cemetery at midnight…but it does not quite thrill the reader as does the best work in this genre…It is due to Mr. Stoker to say that his wild romance is not ridiculous even if it fails to impress". In Stoker's body of work, the endings are all relatively satisfying, clear-cut, and optimistic. The ambiguous, tragic ending of The Jewel of Seven Stars left readers baffled. In the 1960s and 1970s, when critical studies of Dracula increased, more of Stoker's lesser-known work came to light, including The Jewel of Seven Stars. The novel has been examined by critics, but is seen more as a collective part of Stoker's work than an exemplary novel that stands on its own, as Dracula does. 1912 edition When the novel was re-released in 1912, the speculative chapter 16, "Powers Old & New", had been removed. The ending was rewritten as an upbeat, straightforward conclusion wherein the experiment fails, everyone lives, and Margaret and Malcolm get married. Though Harry Ludlam's biography of Stoker states that the publishers asked for a happier and less gruesome ending, Stoker never confirmed this reason. In addition, Ludlam's explanation does not account for the removal of Chapter 16. Stoker's own perspective on censorship in a 1908 essay indicates that he would not have consented to censorship by a publisher: "[T]he strongest controlling force of imagination is in