page_title: Dracula
section_title: "Dracula's Guest"
hierarchical_section_title: Dracula / Official derivative publications / "Dracula's Guest"
caption_attribution_description: English: 1st edition cover
context_page_description: Dracula is an 1897 Gothic horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. It introduced the character of Count Dracula and established many conventions of subsequent vampire fantasy. The novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to move from Transylvania to England so that he may find new blood and spread the undead curse, and of the battle between Dracula and a small group of people led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing.
  Dracula has been assigned to many literary genres including vampire literature, horror fiction, gothic fiction, and invasion literature. The novel has spawned numerous theatrical, film, and television interpretations.
context_section_description: The short story "Dracula's Guest" was posthumously published in 1914, two years after Stoker's death. It was, according to most contemporary critics, the deleted first (or second) chapter from the original manuscript and the one which gave the volume its name, but which the original publishers deemed unnecessary to the overall story.
  "Dracula's Guest" follows an unnamed Englishman traveller as he wanders around Munich before leaving for Transylvania. It is Walpurgis Night and the young Englishman foolishly leaves his hotel, in spite of the coachman's warnings, and wanders through a dense forest alone. Along the way, he feels that he is being watched by a tall and thin stranger (possibly Count Dracula).
  The short story climaxes in an old graveyard where the Englishman, caught in a blizzard, takes refuge in the marble tomb of "Countess Dolingen of Gratz". Within the tomb, he sees the Countess—apparently asleep and healthy—but before he can investigate further, a mysterious force throws him clear of the tomb. A lightning bolt then strikes the tomb, destroying it and incinerating the undead screaming countess. The Englishman then loses consciousness.  He awakens to find a "gigantic" wolf lying on his chest and licking at his throat; however, the wolf merely keeps him warm and protects him until help arrives.
  When the Englishman is finally taken back to his hotel, a telegram awaits him from his expectant host Dracula, with a warning about "dangers from snow and wolves and night". The Swedish scholar Rickard Berghorn noted that the description of the blonde countess in Dracula's Guest closely resembled the description of Josephine in the Powers of Darkness, which he used to argue that the countess and Josephine were meant to be the same character.
caption: Cover of Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories, a collection of short stories authored by Bram Stoker
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