it is widely believed that "dracula's guest" is actually the deleted first chapter from the original "dracula" manuscript, which the publisher felt was superfluous to the story. in the preface to the original edition of "dracula's guest and other weird stories", stoker's widow florence wrote, "to his original list of stories in this book, i have added an hitherto unpublished episode from "dracula". it was originally excised owing to the length of the book, and may prove of interest to the many readers of what is considered my husband's most remarkable work."