Lost notes of Bram Stoker found in attic

Bram Stoker bore a startling resemblance to one of his most famous characters, Jonathan Harker, the troubled solicitor at the centre of the 1897 horror novel Dracula, according to previously unseen notebooks belonging to the author.

British publisher Biteback will launch The Lost Journals of Bram Stoker next year. The notebooks detail Stoker's time in Dublin in 1871 and 1881, and were recently rediscovered in the attic of one of the writer's great-grandsons.

Biteback publisher Jeremy Robson told The Bookseller: "The notebooks reveal the intimate Stoker – his attachment to Dublin and his life in that city."

Robson said there were "elements" of Dracula in the notebooks. "The astute reader will recognise the aide-mémoire technique displayed in the notebooks, which recalls similar notations made by Jonathan Harker – himself a compulsive note-taker." Stoker was a travelling clerk of the court. Harker a travelling solicitor.

Robson bought the rights from Stoker's great-grandnephew Dacre Stoker and Dracula scholar Dr Elizabeth Miller.