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Dracula was written as an epistolary novel, where the story is presented as a series of documents. I'm breaking it up into a serial format using the date stamps on these documents to follow the actual time frame of the story. The twist is that we're six months off... mainly because I really wanted to do this right now now now and the actual novel doesn't start until May. More details on the project here.

The entries are not completely regular, so there will be some days with no posts and some with multiple. In the absence of a time stamp I will set posts to go up in the early AM.

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Monday, January 18, 2016

9 May. Letter from Miss Mina Murray to Miss Lucy Westenra. (backdated)

9 May.
"My dearest Lucy, --

"Forgive my long delay in writing, but I have been simply overwhelmed with work. The life of an assistant schoolmistress is sometimes trying. I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air. I have been working very hard lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan's studies, and I have been practising shorthand very assiduously. When we are married I shall be able to be useful to Jonathan, and if I can stenograph well enough I can take down what he wants to say in this way and write it out for him on the typewriter, at which also I am practising very hard. He and I sometimes write letters in shorthand, and he is keeping a stenographic journal of his travels abroad. When I am with you I shall keep a diary in the same way. I don't mean one of those two-pages-to-the-week-with-Sunday-squeezed-in-a-corner diaries, but a sort of journal which I can write in whenever I feel inclined. I do not suppose there will be much of interest to other people; but it is not intended for them. I may show it to Jonathan some day if there is in it anything worth sharing, but it is really an exercise book. I shall try to do what I see lady journalists do: interviewing and writing descriptions and trying to remember conversations. I am told that, with a little practise, one can remember all that goes on or that one hears said during a day. However we shall see. I will tell you of my little plans when we meet. I have just had a few hurried lines from Jonathan from Transylvania. He is well, and will be returning in about a week. I am longing to hear all his news. It must be so nice to see strange countries. I wonder if we -- I mean Jonathan and I -- shall ever see them together. There is the ten o'clock bell ringing. Good-bye.

"Your loving
"Mina.

"Tell me all the news when you write. You have not told me anything for a long time. I hear rumours, and especially of a tall, handsome, curly-haired man???"

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