Dracula's Guest
| "Dracula's Guest" | |
|---|---|
| Short story by Bram Stoker | |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Horror |
| Publication | |
| Published in | Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories |
| Media type | Hardcover |
| Publication date | 1914 |
"Dracula's Guest" is a short story by Bram Stoker, first published in the short story collection Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories (1914). It is believed to have been intended as the first chapter for Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, but was deleted prior to publication as the original publishers felt it was superfluous to the story.
Background
[edit]Bram Stoker produced over 100 pages of notes for Dracula.[1] The earliest surviving notes are dated from 1890, seven years before the novel's publication.[2] In the Dictionary of Literary Biography entry for Stoker, Dracula scholar Elizabeth Miller concludes that "Dracula's Guest" was part of the original plan for Dracula but never intended as the first chapter.[3] In 1914—two years after Stoker's death—Florence Stoker, his widow and literary executor, published Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Tales,[4] a collection of nine short stories; of the nine, three had never been published.[citation needed] In the book's preface, Florence wrote that "Dracula's Guest" was had been first chapter of Dracula until the publisher requested its removal due to length concerns.[4][5]
Literary critic Robert Eighteen-Bisang and Miller doubt that Florence's preface is accurate.[6] They note that parts of "Dracula's Guest" were integrated into the published novel.[7] Leslie S. Klinger connects the story to one in Stoker's notes and notes that "Dracula's Guest" has very little in common with the 1897 novel.[8]
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.[9]
Plot
[edit]An unnamed young Englishman is visiting Munich before leaving for Transylvania. It is Walpurgis Night. The hotelier warns him not to return late. He takes a carriage towards the direction of an abandoned "unholy" village. The carriage departs with a frightened and superstitious driver. On the journey, a tall and gaunt stranger frightens the horses at the crest of a hill.
The man arrives at a valley as snow falls and a storm begins. The Englishman takes shelter in a grove of cypress and yew trees and is flooded by moonlight lighting the way to a cemetery.He tries to leave but is forced by hail to take shelter. The door of the tomb opens under his weight and a flash of forked lightning reveals a beautiful woman sleeping on the bier.. A lightning bolt strikes the tomb and kills the woman.
He regains his senses but is repulsed by a feeling of loathing. A warm feeling spreads through his chest and throat. A gigantic wolf with flaming eyes tends to him. Military horsemen wake the semi-conscious Englishman and chases the wolf away with torches and guns. After the chase, some scouts return to the Englishman and report that they had not found the wolf. They say the animal is "a wolf—and yet not a wolf". They notice there is blood on the ruined tomb but the Englishman is unblooded. They say that the wolf has lay on him and ket his blood warm. Later, the Englishman finds his neck pains.
The men escort the Englishman back to the hotel. He is informed that his host, Count Dracula, has sent a telegram to warn him of "dangers from snow and wolves and night".
References
[edit]- ^ Bierman 1998, p. 152.
- ^ Frayling & Miller 2005, p. 170.
- ^ Miller 2005, p. 228.
- ^ a b Miller 2006, p. 226.
- ^ Miller 2006, p. 278.
- ^ Eighteen-Bisang & Miller 2008, pp. 278–279.
- ^ Eighteen-Bisang & Miller 2008, p. 279.
- ^ Stoker & Klinger 2008, pp. 9–10.
- ^ Skal 2001, pp. 196–198.
Sources
[edit]- Eighteen-Bisang, Robert; Miller, Elizabeth (2008). Bram Stoker's Notes for Dracula: A Facsimile Edition. McFarland & Co. Pub. ISBN 978-0-7864-5186-9. OCLC 335291872.
- Hughes, William; Smith, Andrew, eds. (1998). Bram Stoker: History, Psychoanalysis and the Gothic. Macmillan Press. ISBN 978-1-349-26840-5.
- Bierman, Joseph S. "A Crucial Stage in the Writing of Dracula". In Hughes & Smith (1998).
- Frayling, Christopher (1992). Vampyres: Lord Byron to Count Dracula. Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-16792-0.
- Miller, Elizabeth, ed. (2005). "Bram Stoker's Working Papers for Dracula". Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 304: Bram Stoker's Dracula, A Documentary Volume. Thompson Gale. ISBN 078766841-9.
- Frayling, Christopher; Miller, Elizabeth. "Bram Stoker's Working Papers for Dracula". In Miller (2005), pp. 170–181.
- Leatherdale, Clive; Miller, Elizabeth. ""Dracula's Guest" and Dracula". In Miller (2005), pp. 234–235.
- Miller, Elizabeth (2006). Dracula: Sense and Nonsense (2nd ed.). Desert Island Books. ISBN 9781905328154.
- Skal, David J. (2001). The monster show: a cultural history of horror. Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-19996-9.
- Stoker, Bram; Klinger, Leslie S. (2008). The New Annotated Dracula. W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN 978-0-393-06450-6. OCLC 227016511.
External links
[edit]
The full text of Dracula's Guest at Wikisource- Documentary "The Vampire Princess", written and directed by Klaus T. Steindl (2007)
