'Banishing the Beast: the Role of the Wolf in "Dracula's Guest" and Its Omission from "Dracula"'

Bram Stoker’s Dracula’s Guest and Other Weird Stories was published posthumously in April 1914, two years after the author’s death. Its name linked it with the more widely known novel Dracula (1897), leading scholars to argue whether “Dracula’s Guest” was ever intended to sit within its parent text or was simply a stand-alone short story. Analysis of “Dracula’s Guest” has been limited by these arguments, and little has been written about the manner in which the short story affects interpretations of Dracula. Our aim in this article is to suggest that, whether or not the story was intended to form part of the wider novel, it still tells us much about perceptions of the vampire/werewolf relationship and how this is misunderstood with regard to the novel Dracula. The (were)wolf in “Dracula’s Guest” returns in Dracula but has been overlooked; instead Dracula has become the classic blueprint for the vampire. Since its publication, “Dracula’s Guest” has appeared in anthologies for both vampire and werewolf stories as it includes both elements, suggesting a confusion between the two creatures. The story shows Stoker’s interest in lycanthropy as well as vampires, and the influence this had on Count Dracula’s creation.