Dracula's Guest - Stoker, Bram

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Résumé :
Bram Stoker wrote a short story named Dracula's Guest. A young Englishman is followed in Dracula's Guest as he travels to Transylvania. The young guy subsequently leaves his carriage and walks off, disregarding the hotel owner's advice to arrive on time. After a few hours, it starts to snow as he approaches a barren valley; as a dark storm intensifies, he seeks refuge in a forest of cypress and yew trees. Soon, the moonlight reveals his location as a cemetery, and he finds himself in front of a marble tomb with a huge iron spike embedded in the roof. The Englishman's problems are still far from over. As he slowly comes to his senses after the ordeal, he experiences a feeling of disgust that he associates with a warm sensation in his chest and the licking of his throat. The horsemen who first discover the Englishman unconscious in a tomb describe him as an animal that is a wolf-and yet not a wolf. Additionally, they observe that blood is on the tomb while his neck is unblooded. When the men later return the Englishman to his hotel, they tell him that it was none other than his eager host Count Dracula who had sent a telegram warning the Ma?tre d'h?tel of dangers from snow and wolves and night.

Biographie:
Abraham Bram Stoker (8 November 1847- 20 April 1912) was an Irish writer. He supplemented his income by writing a large number of sensational novels, his most famous being the vampire tale Dracula which he published in 1897. Before writing Dracula, Stoker spent eight years researching European folklore and stories of vampires. Dracula is an epistolary novel, written as collection of diary entries, telegrams, and letters from the characters, as well as fictional clippings from the Whitby and London newspapers. Stoker's inspiration for the story was a visit to Slains Castle near Aberdeen. The bleak spot provided an excellent backdrop for his creation. Dracula has been the basis for countless movies and plays. The first was Nosferatu directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlock. Nosferatu was produced while Florence Stoker, Bram Stoker's widow and literary executrix, was still alive. Represented by the attorneys of the British Incorporated Society of Authors, she eventually sued the filmmakers. Her chief legal complaint was that she had been neither asked for permission for the adaptation nor paid any royalty. The case dragged on for some years, with Mrs Stoker demanding the destruction of the negative and all prints of the movie. The suit was finally resolved in the widow's favour in July 1925. Some copies of the movie survived, however, and Nosferatu is now widely regarded as an innovative classic. The most famous movie version of Dracula is the 1931 production starring Bela Lugosi and which spawned several sequels that had little to do with Stoker's novel.

Sommaire:
Bram Stoker, born in Dublin in 1847, overcame a childhood illness to become an accomplished athlete and scholar at Trinity College. His career took a pivotal turn when he became the personal assistant to the famous actor Sir Henry Irving and managed London's Lyceum Theatre for 27 years, immersing himself in high society. While best known for his 1897 novel Dracula, Stoker wrote several other works of gothic fiction. Dracula, in particular, drew on his fascination with folklore and became an iconic influence in vampire literature and popular culture.Stoker's life was shaped by his wide range of interests, including literature, theatre, and travel. His time managing the Lyceum Theatre gave him access to London's literary and artistic circles, where he met figures like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Walt Whitman. His travels to places like Whitby, England, and Cruden Bay, Scotland, helped inspire the eerie settings in Dracula. Although he never visited Eastern Europe, Stoker's extensive research into its folklore gave his most famous work a haunting authenticity.In his later years, Stoker faced declining health and financial struggles, yet he remained productive until his death in 1912. Dracula was not initially recognized as a literary masterpiece but has since become one of the most influential horror novels ever written, cementing Stoker's place in literary history. His unique blend of gothic horror, folklore, and Victorian anxieties continues to captivate readers and inspire adaptations across all forms of media....