Dracula's Guest Bram Stoker 9781481221214 Books
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Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories is a collection of short stories by Bram Stoker, first published in 1914, two years after Stoker's death. The stories in the collection 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".
Dracula's Guest Bram Stoker 9781481221214 Books
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Tags : Dracula's Guest [Bram Stoker] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories is a collection of short stories by Bram Stoker, first published in 1914,Bram Stoker,Dracula's Guest,CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform,1481221213,FICTION Horror
Dracula's Guest Bram Stoker 9781481221214 Books Reviews
Dracula being one of my favorite books, I was thrilled to find this collection of Bram Stoker's short stories. I enjoy horror writers who can provoke old-fashioned fright without relying too heavily on graphic details; while those details have a place, too many of them dampen a story. I was hoping that this collection would be as skillfully crafted as Dracula; I'm happy to say that this anthology mostly lived up to my expectations. While there's plenty of ghoulish tension throughout the book, these stories also provide moral lessons, cautionary tales, some hair-raising plot twists, and even a few happy anecdotes that keep the collection from feeling monolithic.
Disclaimer I tried to keep the "spoilers" in this review to a minimum - that is, I did not include any details that you would not read within the first half of the stories. Read on if you want more information about each individual tale; otherwise, suffice it to say that fans of gothic horror writing will probably find this collection very enjoyable and worth a read.
"Dracula's Guest" A headstrong stranger faces danger when he does not heed the advice of the locals. I was glad I knew Dracula as well as I do when I started reading this selection because Stoker draws a lot of parallels to the opening scenes of his novel (a carriage ride, mountainous terrain, wolves, baleful weather, the dangers of Walpurgis Nacht), which made the reading experience feel rich and familiar.
"The Judge's House" A young man stays in a house with an unpleasant, angry past, much to the chagrin of the surrounding townsfolk. Again, Stoker points out the foolishness of willfully neglecting superstition/advice; I'll admit that this felt a bit predictable after "Dracula's Guest," but I still found myself enthralled with the narrative.
"The Squaw" A couple's honeymoon does not exactly go as planned. Some truly horrific events transpire in the few pages of this story, which is far and away the most disturbing, graphic tale in the book. I won't spoil it with any more details.
"The Secret of Growing Gold" A callous lover learns that he cannot bury his past. This one felt like the most conventional story for me, perhaps because it does deal with a jilted lover, which is one of the oldest themes in storytelling. Still, even in Stoker's most conventional stories, he has a good knack for maintaining a menacing enough tone that you want to keep reading.
"A Gipsy Prophecy" A young couple must figure out how to deal with a terribly upsetting prophecy they receive from a local gipsy. Kind of self-explanatory, but I liked this one quite a bit.
"The Coming of Abel Behenna" Two men and one woman find themselves embroiled in a fiercely competitive love triangle. I found the tone of this story more mocking and satiric than the other stories in the book, which was refreshing. Stoker condemns the fickleness of affection and the repercussions of jealousy while still weaving a ghastly story in the process.
"The Burial of the Rats" An early 1900s chase-scene set in fantastic, perilous circumstances. This story starts slowly but builds into a breakneck pace - I really enjoyed it by the end, and there are some fairly unsettling ideas brought together as the narrator runs for his life.
"A Dream of Red Hands" Two friends learn about the power of guilt and repentance. I realize that sounds like the plot of a Lifetime movie, but this story's a bit of a far cry from the straight horror genre, which I appreciated in this anthology.
"Crooken Sands" A man discovers that he is truly his own worst enemy. The protagonist's anticipated undoing is bred from his own pride; because of that, he will not stop his terrible fate even as he sees it coming to pass before his own eyes.
"Lair of the White Worm" A 120-page novella about a young man and his granduncle getting wrapped up in the mysteries surrounding the eccentric, inscrutable heir to a local estate and an equally puzzling woman. There's some stirring imagery and bizarre twists that keep the story relatively entertaining, but I had the hardest time getting into this of all the stories in the book; the narrative is very herky-jerky and the tone is uneven. The hallmark of a good horror story is that it seems real; what struck me most the first time I read Dracula was the chilling atmosphere and the characters' genuine terror as their understanding was shattered by the dark, demonic "other" they encountered in the book's nominal character. Sadly, I did not get any such feeling reading this selection, despite its seeming similarities to Stoker's novel; for one, the characters seem recover too quickly from the sickening events that transpire, which makes the story feel cursory and surreal. Not Stoker's best, but still worth a read for the frame of reference.
Despite the shortcomings of the final selection in the book, this collection is definitely worth reading. Highly recommended to fans of Dracula and/or gothic horror stories.
The synopsis was completely misleading as it implied there was other short stories contained within. I was already familiar with Dracula's Guest being the missing first chapter of the novel Dracula as I owned a short story anthology of other "chilling tales" that contained it when I was a teenager. That book has long since disappeared, so I'm happy to have the story again. I'm very disappointed that the only other things contained within were attempts to get me to purchase sets of x number of stories you should read before you die. Um they're free on individually. I already own most of them. So glad I didn't pay for this one!
Bram Stoker (1847-1912) is known the world over as the author of DRACULA, one of the Victorian era's most celebrated novels, certainly one of the horror genre's foundational works. It was not, however, his only work; Stoker also wrote at least eleven other novels and novellas and any number of short stories, none of them as widely known or celebrated as his masterwork. DRACULA'S GUEST, often titled DRACULA'S GUEST AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES, collects the title piece and eight unrelated stories.
"Dracula's Guest" is generally thought to be an episode Stoker wrote for inclusion in DRACULA--an episode that was cut during the editing process. Well, maybe, maybe not; a good many critics have noted that it is quite unlike DRACULA in tone and that it is difficult to see where the piece would have fit in the novel. Whatever the case, the story concerns an unnamed traveler, possibly Johnathan Harker, who is traveling in Germany on Walpurgis Night, and very foolishly leaves his coach to stroll down a lane of unsavory reputation. A ruined town, a cemetery, a violent storm, a wolf, and and an unexpected rescue follow, but quite frankly I wasn't impressed by it.
Probably the best of the stories that follow is "The Judge's House," the story of student Malcom Malcolmson, who seeks out an isolated town and further still an isolated house in which to study. He is warned that the house was once home to a judge notorious for his excessive sentences, but he pays the warnings no mind ... until he finds the house infested by a large rat with blazing eyes. Well written and distinctly creepy, "The Judge's House" seems similar in plot and even tone to Edgar Allen Poe, and it also seems to anticipate various works by H.P. Lovecraft.
"The Burial of the Rats" is disturbingly atmospheric, the story of an Englishman who desperately seeks to escape robbery and murder in the slums of Paris. "A Dream of Red Hands" also has considerable atmosphere, and so too does "Crooken Sands," which is surprisingly funny until an unsettling twist in the final pages. But the remaining stories are not especially memorable. A black cat furiously follows a tourist into a historical torture chamber in "The Squaw," and the results are hardly unexpected. "The Secret of Growing Gold" also seems to have a Poe-ish quality in its tale of a woman wronged, but it is none the better for that. "The Gipsy Prophecy" and "The Coming of Abel Behenna" are mere Victorian melodrama.
Ultimately, DRACULA'S GUEST AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES is really a collection best left to those who enjoy Victorian literature in general and Bram Stoker in particular. They are entertaining enough in their way, but I won't be sitting up at night over any of them.
GFT, Reviewer
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