Dracula's Guest [Hardcover]

Bram Stoker (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0884111326 | ISBN-13: 978-0884111320 | Publication Date: June 1979

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Amereon Ltd (June 1979)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0884111326
• ISBN-13: 978-0884111320
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,992,956 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific stories from a true master of horror, September 10, 2001

By 

Daniel Jolley "darkgenius" (Shelby, North Carolina USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dracula's guest (Paperback)

Even had Bram Stoker not penned the fabulously successful Dracula, efforts such as the stories in this book would more than qualify him as a gifted, masterful writer, with a special penchant for writing horror. The most prominent story in these pages is of course "Dracula's Guest," a story excised from the final manuscript of Dracula. This is an interesting, well-told tale, but its exclusion from the aforementioned novel seems to me to be rather inconsequential. The real jewel of this collection is "The Judge's House." I have read this story several times over the last decade or so, and I must say that this is my favorite horror story of all time. It somewhat chagrins me to make such a pronouncement, thinking of the masterful tales of Lovecraft, Poe, and King, yet I am compelled to make it. The ending may be somewhat cliched , but the dark, brooding, smothering atmosphere Stoker creates in this house is powerful and brilliant. The Judge's House may well be the most haunted house in literature.

The other seven stories are less noteworthy but eminently readable. Again, there are some cliches to be found among them, but they all "work." "The Squaw" is my least favorite--it is, to some degree, silly n terms of its characters and ending. I should also add that animal lovers such as myself may well be somewhat traumatized by one incident in the story--I certainly was. "The Secret of the Growing Gold," "The Gypsy Prophecy" and "The Coming of Abel Behenna" are pretty standard fare. "The Burial of the Rats" presents a thrilling, well-thought-out story of danger and escape (as well as a grim portrait of some of society's underbelly). "A Dream of Red Hands" is a sort of moralistic story that puts me in mind of some of Hawthorne's work. Finally, "Crooken Sands" is a good doppelganger tale whose presentation and overall air seem different, if not unique, from the other tales in this book. If you love old Scottish dialogue, you will reap some benefits from this story--for the rest of us, though, it makes for some slightly harder reading (but I think the story would be much less effective without it).

All in all, Stoker was a more than capable short story writer, even though he did sometimes stick too closely to the classic form; cliches and predictable plot points do diminish the quality of a few stories but by no means do they seriously hamper the effectiveness of them. It is unfortunate that many people think Stoker wrote Dracula and nothing else. The selections in this book are classic horror stories that only help to grant legitimacy to the genre.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Replacement Chapter, August 14, 2000

By 

Daniel Stanfield "BibleSanity.org" (Alvarado, TX USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dracula's Guest (Hardcover)

This "short story" was originally part of "Dracula." It was left out at the behest of the publisher and published after Stoker's death by his wife. I've read "Dracula" many times in my life, and enjoy "Dracula's Guest" as a "lost chapter". It is obvious where the account fits into the book because it builds up to the letter from D. to the innkeeper which *is* in the book.

In defense of the original publisher's ax to the chapter, the story is much more rapid paced and has less of the "haunting realness" that rest of "Dracula" has - it is more in the pulp style of Stoker's "Lair of the White Worm".

SPOILER >> It adds a little depth to Jonathan Harker's journey to the castle in the form of a foreshadowing encounter with another vampire. << SPOILER

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of Stoker's best, December 23, 2005

By 

Paul S. Mcalduff (Kwangju, South Korea) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dracula's Guest (Paperback)

I consider this to be one of Stoker's best books. I would rate it right up there with "Dracula" and "The Jewel of the Seven Stars". The short stories in this collection are great. I especially liked the stories `Dracula's Guest' (which is supposed to be an exercised chapter from Dracula) and `The Judge's House'.

The nine stories in this 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

If you enjoyed "Dracula" you should definitely read this book.