Carmilla (Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu)

What’s tough about Carmilla is you want it to be romantic but Sheridan Le Fanu wants you to think that lesbians are scary. And that’s a really interesting tension to hold while reading. There’s also a kind of fascinating correlation I never noticed before between vampirism and chronic illness, with disability and queerness both as a sort of contagion. I don’t know if anyone’s ever written about Carmilla and hysteria, but I imagine there’s a lot to work with.