Bram Stoker | Dracula | 1897

My Dearest Mina,

I know you are busy in Roumania being both Jonathan's wife and nurse, but I couldn't help wanting to distract you from your task for a few moments. Things are becoming awfully strange back home, and I must admit that your marriage has caused conflicting emotions to possess me. What of Lucy? I know you felt very grown up and affectionate while you watched her embroiled courtship from the stronghold of your own engagement, but did you ever really ask why it happened the way it did? Did you not notice that it was after your own engagement that she rushed into hers, and seemed so immediately consumed with the desire to know the same state of possession? All those years of being so close, of sharing those secrets in your shared bed... Lucy missed you enough, Mina, that she thought only a man's proposal could erase the difference your engagement set between you.

I'm sorry, but I must tell you that she is suffering from the acquaintance of a certain gentleman, who is no stranger to your husband. Dr Steward has brought in a foreign expert who seems to be going about things the right way, but every time her condition seems likely to improve, some sad coincidence leaves her vulnerable to further attack. As a result of this she has now had the blood of three men - both doctors and the Texan - siphoned into her veins, without the knowledge of her fiancé. Mina, Lucy is in the hands of men I do not entirely trust - especially the doctors, one of whom fosters lunatics and is tempted by delusions of grandeur, the other with a mad wife whom he has locked away somewhere while he gallivants around England tending to unmarried and under-clothed young women.

My Darling, Lucy has been lost since the moment they diagnosed her. All I can do is beg you to be careful when you return - these men have insinuated their very essences into Lucy's body, and I believe they will not hesitate to destroy her in the name of restoring her purity. So please, keep records of everything - do not let a stray remark from them escape you. Do not trust Jonathan to keep you safe - if it is not their blood they use to ensnare you, it will be their tears, and he will aid them.

Oceans of Love,
Rose Edwards

Bram Stoker | Dracula | 1897

Dear Mina,

I know, you're in Romania nursing dear Jonathan back to health, and by now you've probably married him too. (Was it by some quaint peasant custom? No doubt.) Well, I have news for you, lots of news. Firstly, Jonathan's a wuss. You're about a million times brighter than he is, you are more resilient and braver, and I can't believe you plumped for him when you used to sleep with Lucy, even if it was in an 1870s sisterly kind of way.

Secondly, thanks to your superior attitude to Lucy ever since you got engaged to J, she's gone and got herself engaged within the space of approximately three days. But wait, there's more! Last you saw her, she was all girlish and flushed and excited about her suitors (remember how she wished she could marry all three of them? didn't that set any alarm bells ringing?)--well, now she's all flushed and excited because a certain someone who is not altogether unknown to dear Jonathan is having his way with her, or more specifically with her neck. And her rejected suitors, under the guidance of a somewhat manic "foreign expert," have been pumping her full of their blood every time they find her underdressed and oversucked on the bed. If that's not in need of investigation by a medical malpractice panel, I don't know what is.

Mina, they are going to punish her for not giving them what they want, or rather, for giving Dracula what they want. I'd just like you to know that, because when you get back it's going to be all tears and declarations of (posthumous) adoration, and then they are going to fixate on you next. Keep records of everything, and for goodness sake don't let old Van Helsing get you alone. For a man of science he's entirely too fond of charging into ladies' boudoirs brandishing his holy wafer.

With oceans of love and a deep incomprehension as to what you ever saw in Jonathan Harker,
Rose Edwards