Section II. Dracula's Guest

In the Preface to the collection of short stories, Dracula's Guest, Florence Stoker wrote: 

A few months before the lamented death of my husband—I might say even as the shadow of death was over him—he planned three series of short stories for publication, and the present volume is one of them. To his original list of stories in this book, I have added a hitherto unpublished episode from "Dracula." It was originally excised owning 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. The other stories have already been published in English and American periodicals. Had my husband lived longer, he might have seen fit to revise this work, which is mainly from the earlier years of his strenuous life. But as fate has entrusted to me the issuing of it, I consider it fitting and proper to let it go forth practically as it was left by him.

Florence Stoker's account of "Dracula's Guest," remained unchallenged to the 1980s. Harry Ludlam would in his 1962 biography of Stoker, for example, devote several paragraphs to retelling Florence's account of the lost chapter. The Dracula's Guest collection would be reprinted a number of times (though far less than Dracula) through the first half of the twentieth century, and after it entered the public domain. the name short story from the collection has been a popular item to include in vampire and horror anthologies. In 1979, Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu saw fit, for the first time, too place it at the beginning of an edition of Dracula, their annotated volume, The Essential Dracula, thus to all appearances returning "Dracula's Guest" to its proper place.

In the 1980s, however, several scholars who had made Dracula the primary object of their research began to question Florence Stoker's account. "Dracula's Guest" did not seem to fit in style and tone with the book. Once the content of Stoker's research notes became known, as well as the content of the copy of the Dracula manuscript discovered in 1984, further arguments against "Dracula's Guest" being a missing first chapter were marshaled. While almost no one today believes that "Dracula's Guest was all or part of material removed from the manuscript as it was readied for publication, there is a range of opinion as to what it played, from a missing second chapter to simply a freestanding short story with only a vague relationship to the novel. For a summary discussion of the present state of the continuing debate, see Elizabeth Miller, Dracula Sense and Nonsense (Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, UK: Desert Island Books, 2000, pp. 131-35).

 

First edition:

Stoker, Bram. Dracula’s Guest. London: Routledge, 1914. 200 pp. hb. dj. Dust jacket: Harker being attacked by wolf.

Undated 12th impression.

 

Published as title story in:

-----. Dracula's Guest. London: Prince of Wales Theatre, 1927. 200 pp. tp. Cover: Red lettering with a black bat. Limited to 1000 presentation copies distributed to those in attendance at the 250th performance of Dracula at the Prince of Wales Theatre on Sept. 14, 1927. Upon opening their copy, a bat flew out.       

-----. Dracula's Guest. New York: A Crime Club Mystery/Hillman-Curl, Inc., 1937. 284 pp. hb. dj. The first American edition of the collection.

-----. Dracula's Guest. London: Jarrolds, 1966. 192 pp. hb. dj. Dust jacket: grave with wolves.

-----. Dracula's Guest. London: Arrow, 1966. 192 pp. pb. Cover: grave with wolves.

Second printing, 1974
Third printing, 1975. Cover: Woman lying prone in front of grave.
Fourth printing, 1980.

-----. Dracula's Guest. Toronto: McLeod, 1966?. 192 pp. hb. dj. Reprint of Jarrolds edition.

-----. Dracula's Curse and the Jewel of the Seven Stars. New York: Tower Publications, 1968. 218 pp. pb. Cover: Lugosi as Dracula. In this volume, "Dracula's Guest" was renamed "Dracula's Curse."

-----. Dracula's Guest and Other Stories. Ed. by Vic Ghidalia. Middleton, CT: Xerox Education Publications, 1972. 125 pp. Cover: Dracula and castle. Note: not the original collection of Stoker stories.

-----. Dracula's Guest. New York: Zebra, 1978. 194 pp. pb. "Publisher's Note." pp. 7-8. "A Word from the Editor" by Kenneth Deutsch, pp. 193-94. Cover: Youthful vampire with woman in background.

-----. Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories. Mattituck, NY: Ameron House, 1990. 200 pp. hb. Library binding. Limited to 300 copies.

-----. Dracula's Guest. Dingle, Co. Kerry, Ireland: Brandon, 1990. 160 pp.

-----. Dracula's Guest. New York: Books of Wonder, 1997.

Reprinted in:

The Anthology of Fear. London: Marshall Cavendish, 1988.

Best Ghost Stories. New York: Dover, 1999.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula Omnibus. London: Orion, 1992. 576 pp. hb. Introduction by Fay Weldon. Rpt.: London: Orion, 1992. 576 pp. tp. Rpt.: Smithbooks, 1992. 543 pp. hb. Rpt.: New York: Chartwell Books, 1994. 576 pp. hb.

Dalby, Richard, ed. Vampire Stories. London: Michael O’Mara, 1992. Rpt.: Secaucus, NJ: Castle Books, 1993. 246 pp. hb.

Dickie, James, ed. The Undead. London: Neville Spearman, 1971. 222 pp. hb.

Frayling, Christopher, ed. The Vampyre: Lord Ruthven to Count Dracula. London: Gollancz, 1978. 336 pp. Rpt. as: The Vampyre: A Bedside Companion. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978. 336 pp. hb. Rev. ed. as: Vampyres: Lord Byron to Count Dracula. London: Faber and Faber, 1991. 429 pp. tp.

Great Vampires & Other Horrors. London: Chancellor Press, 1992. Rpt. as: Great Vampire Stories. London: Chancellor Press, 2002.

Haining, Peter, ed. Vampire: Chilling Tales of the Undead. London: Target, 1985. 240 pp. pb. Rpt.: London: Severn House, 1985. 240 pp. hb. dj

Haydock, Tim, ed. The Mammoth Book of Classic Chillers. London: Robinson, 1986.

Hill, Mary, ed. Creepy Classics. New York: Random House, 1994.

Jones, Stephen, ed. The Mammoth Book of Vampires. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1992. 553 pp. tp. Rpt. as: The Giant Book of Vampires. London: Magpie Books, 1994. 553 pp. tp. Rpt. as: Book of Vampires. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1997. 553 pp. hb.

Kaye, Marvin, ed. Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural. New York: SFBC, 1985. Rpt.: New York: Barnes & Noble, 1985. 623 pp. hb. dj.

McNally, Raymond, ed. A Clutch of Vampires. New York: New York Graphic Society, 1974. hb. Rpt.: New York: Bell Publishing Company, 1974. 255 pp. hb. Rpt.: London: New English Library, 1974. 220 pp. pb.

Manson, Cynthia, and Constance Scarborough, eds. The Haunted Hour. New York: Berkley Prime Crime, 1995.

Miller, John, and Tim Smith. The Moon Box. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1995.

Ryan, Alan, ed. Vampires: Two Centuries of Great Vampire Stories. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1987. 621 pp. Rpt. as: The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories. New York: Penguin Books, 1988. 621 pp. tp.

Shepard, Leslie, ed. The Dracula Book of Great Vampire Stories. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1977. 269 pp. tp.

Rpt.: New York: Jove, 1978. 316 pp. pb.

-----. The Book of Dracula. New York: Wings Books, 1991. 269+288 pp. hb. dj. Combines The Dracula Book of Great Vampire Stories and The Dracula Book of Great Horror Stories.

Skal, David J., ed. Vampires: Encounters with the Undead. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2001.

Stephens, John Richard. Vampires, Wine & Roses. New York: Berkley Books, 1997.

Stoker, Bram. The Bram Stoker Bedside Companion: 10 Stories by the Author of Dracula. Edited by Charles Osborne. London: Victor Gollancz, 1973

Rpt.: New York: Taplinger Publishing Company, 1973. 224 pp. hb.
Rpt.: London: Quartet Books, 1973. 200 pp. pb.
Rpt.: New York: Taplinger Publishing Company, 1979. 224 pp. tp.

-----. The Essential Dracula: A Completely Illustrated and Annotated Edition of Bram Stoker’s Classic Novel. Ed. by Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu. New York: Mayflower, 1979. 320 pp. hb. Oversize. Includes text of "Dracula's Guest" Cover: Frank Langella as Dracula. Doubleday text.

Reprinted: 1993.
Rpt.: London: Penguin, 1993. 320 pp. tp.

-----. Dracula. Edited by Glennis Byron.Peterborough, ON, Ca: Broadview Press, 1998. 493 pp. tp. Series: Broadview Literary Texts.

-----. Dracula. Edited by Nina Auerbach and David J. Skal. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997. 488 pp. tp. Series: Norton Critical Editions.

-----. Dracula. Ed. by John Paul Riquelme. Boston: Bedford/New York: St. Martin's, 2002. 622 pp. tp. Series: Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism.

Waugh, Charles G., Martin H. Greenberg, and Frank D. McSherry, Jr., ed. Cinemonsters. Geneva: WI: TSR, 1987.

  

GraphicArt Adaptations

Bram Stoker, "Dracula's Guest." Text. Chilling Monster Tales (M. M. Publishing, Ltd.) vol. 1 # 1 (1966). Illus. with photographs from Universal's Dracula (1931).

Birdwell, E. Nelson, and Frank Bolle. Dracula's Guest. in Christopher, Lee ed. Christopher Lee's Treasury of Terror. New York: Pyramid Books, 1966. pb. [Reprint in Eerie #16 & #24.]

Rpt.: Eerie 16 (July 1968). 7 pp.
Rpt.: Eerie 24 (Nov. 1969). 7 pp.

Jones, Steve, Robert Schnieders, and Brent Carpenter. Dracula: The Lady in the Tomb. Malibu, CA: Eternity Comics, 1991. Volume also includes "Dracula's Guest: The Missing Chapter" by Steven Philip Jones. 2p. Text.

Audio Adaptations

1992

Dracula's Guest. Read by Victor Garber.

Durkin Hayes Publishing. Single cassette. TAB 026.
Cover: Skull with lightening.

Dracula: Truth and Terror. Annotations by Raymond T. McNally.

S. Burlington, VT: Voyager. Single cd.
Cover: Stake in coffin lid.