Dracula blog

I just found out about this blog, and I think it's pretty cool. If you've ever read Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, you know that it's written in the form of diary entries by the various characters. So what could be more natural than to post those entries as a blog, on the same day that they are dated? That's what Whitney Sorrow is doing over on the blog Dracula. Here's how she describes it.

"Experience Bram Stoker's Dracula in a new way -- in real time. Dracula is an epistolary novel (a novel written as a series of letters or diary entries,) and this blog will publish each diary entry on the day that it was written by the narrator so that the audience may experience the drama as the characters would have. Please subscribe to the RSS feed so that you don't miss any installments!"

Things got started on May 3rd, with Jonathan Harker's journal entry from Bistritz.

"I was not able to light on any map or work giving the exact locality of the Castle Dracula, as there are no maps of this country as yet to compare with our own Ordance Survey Maps; but I found that Bistritz, the post town named by Count Dracula, is a fairly well-known place. I shall enter here some of my notes, as they may refresh my memory when I talk over my travels with Mina."

The postings will obviously continue through November 6th, the last journal entry by one of the novels characters. I think this is a great way to experience the book, and plan to follow along.

On thing that will probably not appear is Stoker's story "Dracula's Guest," which was not part of the original novel and only appeared posthumously. As Bram's widow Florence explained,

"A few months before the lamented death of my husband--I might say even as the shadow of death was over him--he planned three series of short stories for publication, and the present volume is one of them. To his original list of stories in this book, I have added an hitherto unpublished episode from Dracula.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."

If you are one of those readers you might want to read the story to complement Whitney's cool blog.