Before Dracula became a novel, there was this story. Whether it was the excised first chapter, an early draft, or a companion piece, "Dracula's Guest" remains one of gothic literature's most tantalizing fragments. An unnamed Englishman travels through Munich toward a meeting with Count Dracula in Transylvania, but on Walpurgis Night, the eve when the barrier between the living and the dead grows thin, he disregards his driver's warnings and ventures into haunted countryside. In a desolate graveyard, he discovers a beautiful woman asleep in a marble tomb, her presence both terrifying and magnetic. A wolf follows. A storm gathers. What begins as a romantic detour becomes something far darker. Stoker weaves atmosphere like fog, building dread through isolation and the supernatural unknown. The story echoes Le Fanu's Carmilla while hinting at the masterpiece to come. For readers who have always wondered what happened before Jonathan Harrow reached Transylvania, this is the answer, or the question, depending on how you choose to read it.
