A Rookie’s Experience of Vampire Fiction:

Reading Carmilla

Going into a book knowing that it arguably canonised vampire fiction (or Gothic horror) – written in 1872 (thus 26 years before Bram Stoker’s Dracula) – makes for an intimidating first impression. Yet, at no point did I feel overwhelmed by Irish author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla. I relaxed into an easy-going reading of the vampire novella, as if finally tasting chocolate after only ever having chocolate-flavoured things.

That said, it’s time for a confession: my regard for vampire fiction until quite recently was The Twilight Saga, The Vampire Diaries, and a cartoon adaptation of Dracula, voiced by Adam Sandler. So, what I’m saying is: I knew very little about it. I have always understood that part of the package with genre-fiction and thus vampire fiction are tropes, but until reading Carmilla, I didn’t realise that tropes can…