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Dracula's Guest

 Dracula's Guest by Bram Stoker was section that was supposed to have been cut from the novel.  The event in the short story happens on Walpurgis Night, April 30th near Munich.  In the novel on the same night, Jonathan Harker was near Dracula's castle in Transylvania.


In the short story, Johan, is an adventurous Englishman on business.  He strays off the beaten against the advice of the carriage driver.  Where he comes across some ruins and soon learns that he should have listened.


This short story shows off Bram Stoker's writing style very well.   Like Dracula the story filled vivid and active descriptions.  Science fiction owes a lot to Stoker's writing style and to the novel 'Dracula.'


It is easy to see why this portion was cut out.  It moves too fast for the Dracula story.  In the novel, there was a build up before showing the monster.  This was so that Stoker could build the world in the story.  The short story showed a monster right away and went right into the legendary characteristics of the monster.  So if this was an earlier draft, then it is easy to see why it was cut for carriage ride Harker was give by Dracula in the novel.


Dracula's Guest was originally published in Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories in 1914.  The Audio program I listened to was narrated by James Mio.

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