‘Dracula/Harker’ and “Dracula’s Guest”

Dracula/Harker: A Gay Gothic Romance owes much to Bram Stoker’s posthumously published short story “Dracula’s Guest.” Possibly a rejected early draft from or an excised first chapter of Dracula, this less-renowned work is nevertheless notable in the context of my novella series for two reasons. First, it depicts Count Dracula as proactively protective of a presumed Jonathan Harker in that the Transylvanian nobleman is shown shadowing the Englishman in Munich and, upon his being imperiled by both nature and the unnatural, anonymously and supernaturally interceding on his behalf. Second, “Dracula’s Guest” introduces the character of the “Countess Dolingen of Gratz in Styria, [who] sought and found death [in] 1801,” “a beautiful woman, with rounded cheeks and red lips, seemingly sleeping on a bier” inside “a great massive tomb of marble” assumedly almost a century after her suicide. Though limited to these two influences, the import of “Dracula’s Guest” to Dracula/Harker is significant. For how it inspired my work as well as for its own unique merits, I encourage you to read or re-read this lesser-known piece of the Dracula mythos.