Dracula’s Guest and Other Weird Stories is a collection of short stories by Bram Stoker, first published in 1914 by George Routledge and Sons, two years after the author’s death. The stories are:
Dracula’s Guest; The Judge’s House; The Squaw; The Secret of the Growing Gold; A Gipsy Prophecy; The Coming of Abel Behenna; The Burial of the Rats; A Dream of Red Hands; Crooken Sands
Origin:
It is widely believed that “Dracula’s Guest” is actually the deleted first chapter from the original Dracula manuscript, which the publisher felt was superfluous to the story. In the preface to the original edition, Stoker’s widow Florence wrote:
“To his original list of stories in this book, I have added an hitherto unpublished episode from Dracula. It was originally excised owing to the length of the book, and may prove of interest to the many readers of what is considered my husband’s most remarkable work.”
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Plot:
“Dracula’s Guest” follows an Englishman (whose name is never mentioned but is presumed to be Jonathan Harker) on a visit to Munich before leaving for Transylvania. It is Walpurgis Night, and in spite of the hotelier’s warning to not be late back, the young man later leaves his carriage and wanders toward the direction of an abandoned “unholy” village. As the carriage departs with the frightened and superstitious driver, a tall and thin stranger scares the horses at the crest of a hill.
After a few hours, as he reaches a desolate valley, it begins to snow; as a dark storm gathers intensity, the Englishman takes shelter in a grove of cypress and yew trees. The Englishman’s location is soon illuminated by moonlight to be a cemetery, and he finds himself before a marble tomb with a large iron stake driven through the roof, the inscription reads: Countess Dolingen of Gratz / in Styria / sought and found death / 1801. Inscribed on the back of the tomb “graven in great Russian letters” is: ‘The dead travel fast.’ which was an ode to the fable Lenore.
The Englishman is disturbed to be in such a place on such a night and as the storm breaks anew, he is forced by pelting hail to shelter in the doorway of the tomb. As he does so, the bronze door of the tomb opens under his weight and a flash of forked lightning shows the interior – and a “beautiful woman with rounded cheeks and red lips, seemingly sleeping on a bier”. The force of the following thunder peal throws the Englishman from the doorway (experienced as “being grasped as by the hand of a giant”) as another lightning bolt strikes the iron spike, destroying the tomb and the now screaming woman inside.
The Englishman’s troubles are not quite over, as he painfully regains his senses from the ordeal, he is repulsed by a feeling of loathing which he connects to a warm feeling in his chest and a licking at this throat. The Englishman summons courage to peek through his eyelashes and discovers a gigantic wolf with flaming eyes is attending him.
Military horsemen are the next to wake the semi-conscious man, chasing the wolf away with torches and guns. Some horsemen return to the main party and Harker after the chase, reporting that they had not found ‘him’ and that the Englishman’s animal is “a wolf – and yet not a wolf”. They also note that blood is on the ruined tomb, yet the Englishman’s neck is unbloodied. “See comrades, the wolf has been lying on him and keeping his blood warm”. Later, the Englishman finds his neck pained when a horseman comments on it.
When the Englishman is taken back to his hotel by the men, he is informed that it is none other than his expectant host Dracula that has alerted his employees, the horsemen, of “dangers from snow and wolves and night” in a telegram received by the hotel during the time the Englishman was away.
Full text at Wikisource
Public domain audiobook at Librivox
Film, TV and other adaptations:
- David O. Selznick bought the film rights to “Dracula’s Guest” and later re-sold them to Universal Studios. Universal’s film Dracula’s Daughter (1936) was ostensibly based on the story, although it uses nothing from the plot.
- Vampyros Lesbos (1971), an erotic horror film directed by Jesús Franco, was “inspired” by Bram Stoker’s short story.
- A radio drama adaptation of “Dracula’s Guest” was produced in 1999 by the Radio Tales series for National Public Radio.
- Best Sellers Illustrated released “Dracula’s Guest” (with accompanying illustrations by comic veteran Dick Giordano) along with seven other Stoker stories in 2006.
- Bram Stoker’s Dracula’s Curse (2006), a film by The Asylum, takes its title from the alternate name for “Dracula’s Guest” but bears very little resemblance to the actual story by Bram Stoker.
- Bram Stoker’s Dracula’s Guest (2008), is a low budget film that, other than sharing the same title, has nothing in common with Stoker’s tale.
- Dracula was adapted as a five-part comic book miniseries from Dynamite Entertainment. The miniseries, titled The Complete Dracula (2009), incorporates “Dracula’s Guest” into the story.
- Robot Comics published a comic book adaptation by Stephen Antczak, James Bassett, and Steven Sanders in 2010.
- Textbook Stuff published an unabridged audio reading of the story in 2010, alongside “The Judge’s House” and “A Gypsy Prophecy”. It was read by Peter Guinness.
- iTunes published an interactive app by dCipollo Designs LLC in 2013
- Booktrack published a soundtracked eBook version in 2015.
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“The Burial of the Rats” was adapted in 1995 as a movie of the same title by Roger Corman’s film company and as a comic book by Jerry Prosser and Francisco Solano Lopez.
