Today we have our first post that comes out of order with respect to the original Dracula novel: a letter written by Mina while Jonathan is still in Transylvania. Properly this comes from chapter five.
In adhering to strick chronology we gain a little view into the other characters’ actions while the first act is still happening, but we lose a trick the novel pulls that honestly blew me away when I first read it years ago. The first four chapters comprise Jonathan’s journal. The rest of the novel is a compilation of other entries, letters, newspaper clippings, etc. that build upon Jonathan’s discovery of who Dracula is as chronicled by him. Later on when the other characters read Jonathan’s entries, they’re in fact reading exactly the book you’re holding in your hands! If you flip to chapter five and grip the first four chapters’ pages together, that’s what Mina eventually types up from his shorthand. I think that literary trick is super cool. You don’t get it as much in ebook format, and we’re doing something different here, but I wanted to make a note of it. 📚