Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Tales

I confess that I have an embarrassing habit. Once every year, I devour Stoker's 'Dracula' like my very life depends upon it. As if the Prince Of Darkness, himself, sits perched upon my bedroom wall with an insidious smile lighting up his red lips.

What mortifies me is the fact that Francis Ford Coppola's envisioning of 'Dracula' amalgamates with Stoker's written word in my mind to produce a hideously malignant imagery. Who would have thought that Gary Oldman would become firmly entrenched as Dracula whenever the novel is mentioned?

But while Coppola stereotyped Dracula as a lovestruck soul looking to rip your throat (Ladies, any takers?), the beauty of Stoker's narrative lies in what you take from it. Indeed, who is Dracula? What made him show more a vampire? How did he convert his brides? We have a generation of films to fill in the blanks with directors providing their own compulsive take. But rarely do we form our own opinions.

While as a novel 'Dracula' is more tedious than summer school at a beach (the diary narrative is akin to walking on chipped glass-a tedious torture), it compels one to reflect on the escotericism of the unknown. Dracula enters our world through our blind spots, through our unknown to present us with a terrifying spectacle: that we are not omniscient. Despite our advances we still confront mystery after mystery.

Is Stoker than infecting us with nihilism if the unknown is so compellingly strong? I believe not. He reinforces the eventual triumph of morality over immorality (as we fear the unknown for it's absence of tangible/intangible elements we acknowledge), and the defeat of ignorance when one earns enough wisdom to confront the fear of the unknown.

This is what makes 'Dracula' timeless. Not the tedious narrative but it's semi-apocalyptic overtones and-let's be honest-Dracula himself. A specter loaded with infinite horrors. A product of the unknown.

And while Keanu Reeves massacred the role of Jonathan Harker in the Coppola retelling, it is the simplicity of Stoker's characters which makes the horror all the more petrifying. show less

The short stories in Dracula's Guest were compiled by Bram Stoker's widow and published in 1914, two years after his death. Nine stories are included. In my view, they range widely in quality, and in general, they do not reach the heights of Stoker's masterpiece, "Dracula". Of the stories, I found "The Judge's House" and "Burial of the Rats" to be especially notable. Understandably, they are widely reprinted in short story collections. Below are the stories, along with my rankings.

Dracula’s Guest 3*
The Judge’s House 4.5*
The Squaw 2*
The Secret of the Growing Gold 3*
The Gipsy Prophecy 3*
The Coming of Abel Behenna 2*
The Burial of the Rats 4*
A Dream of Red Hands 3*
Crooked Sands 2*

The title piece is an excised section of Dracula. Mrs S says in her preface that it was removed due to the length of the novel. I suspect though that it's excision was more provoked by the fact that it portrays Harker as an absolute muppet and really reveals far too much far too early. If you've read Dracula you my well find that the opening part, Harker's Journal, is by far the most powerful part of the book and this would interrupt the flow.

The remaining stories are for the most part overly predicable or pointless grisly stories. There are nice bits - the deaths in The Squaw are well done, for example and as Mrs S stresses, these are early and unrevised works. The humour of Crooken Sands is enjoyable too. I particularly enjoyed A show more Dream of Red Hands. I really do identify with Jacob Settle. Can't believe I'm admitting this online, but I do, so there. (I haven't actually murdered anyone.)

I think this would be most of interest to a Dracula fan. Stoker is obviously a man with something on his mind and there are elements of all the stories that put you in mind of that novel, not least of which is his obsession with the sense of dread, either in his characters or his audience. show less

This is a collection of various tales, being Dracula's guest only one of them.

As for the tales themselves, my absolute favourite would definitely be the Judge's House, followed by the Dracula's Guest (which is a snippet that had been removed from Dracula).

Other noteworthy tales would also include The Squaw (extremely predictable, but with creepy imagery), The Burial of Rats (the reason for the title is pretty creepy, but lots of plus points for being the most action packed, since it features a chase scene), and The Secret of Growing Gold (reads much like a ghost story). Honourable mention for A Dream of Red Hands, which I found to be more original among the other tales, even if not exactly the most engaging. The rating would go show more something like this:

4* The Judge's House
4* Dracula's Guest
4* The Burial of Rats

3* The Squaw
3* The Secret of Growing Gold
3* A Dream of Red Hands

2* The Coming of Abel Behenna
2* The Gipsy Prophecy
2* Crooken Sands

As I said, the stories follow much the same plotline for the most part, which makes them extremely predictable when reading them all in a row. To be honest, the more stories I read, the more bored I became, because I could foresee overall what was coming. By the end, I just wanted to finish the book already, since the only story able to get me out of my 'stupor' in the second half was The Burial of Rats.

I'd still highly recommend The Judge's House and Dracula's Guest to anyone who liked Dracula however, I found those have the same wonderful eery and creepy atmosphere I loved in that book. Just those two tales alone make this book worth reading. show less

If you want to read vintage Stoker, start here - it's often agreed that Dracula's guest is better than the whole novel (though there's disagreement about whether or not he meant it to be part of the original).

Not one for reading alone in a creaky old house... particularly if it has rats.........

Short story collection. The tales are nicely gruesome in general but a bit flat or too obvious. The last story might be the best and thats more of a horror comedy, but not enough to get it to 3 stars overall. The title story is a discarded piece of Dracula and a good decision to cut it in my opinion.

This short story didn’t blow me away, but I do want to reread Dracula now.