easily out of all the classics i’ve read from before the 1900s, this is my favourite. 

yes technically this edition is modern as it was edited by carmen maria machado but SHUT UP.

also shout out to carmen i loved her editing!!!! her little end notes plus her prologue? honestly without her editing i don’t think i would’ve enjoyed this as much. so happy i chose to read this edition. the fact that carmen doesn’t add the additional letters simply to spite the author for hiding just HOW DOWN BAD laura was???? god her prologue was so fun. usually prologue’s for classics are a snooze fest where it’s literally just them recounting the authors life, but carmen somehow managed to breathe life into a short summary? plus i don’t know if the original edition has this or if carmen added it, but the images!!!!! did not expect them, and honestly it added to the story quite nicely, especially the images where laura is so incredibly down bad. she’s so me coded (falls head over heels in seconds without checking for concerns and becomes absolutely infatuated with someone she knows jack shit about). i love stupid lesbian rep in my 1800s gothics. 

god what can i say. this book immediately gets bonus points because i am infact a lesbian who loves vampires and horror. like this book was set up for me to love it. plus carmen’s editing made all the fanciful 1800s english actually coherent! cuz im sorry english pre-1900s is so hard for my brain to comprehend. sorry booktwt im not smart enough for classics sue me. but this? this made so much sense and i loved it.

i also loved that the classic vampire traits we’ve grown to know don’t come from this. i mean this was literally the blueprint of vampire tales. i love that carmilla is just a sleepy girl who wakes up at 1pm and is moody. me and carmilla are one in the same. she gets me fr. like fuck that shit about garlic give me an enchantress who happens to be perpetually tired. like my girl has CFS/ME and is goth she’s literally me!!!!!!!! plus she turns into a cat!!!!! all lesbians love cats!!!!!! carmilla is the same as modern day lesbians i said what i said.

also props for the lesbianism being so explicit! in other classics there’s a lot of subtext…., nah in here we see carmilla and laura kiss and laura has a sleep orgasm cuz she dreams about carmilla. she’s so down bad. 

i wish i got a bit more time with my homegirl carmilla and saw her be more explicitly a vampire but im not too mad about it. i like the fact her vampirism is more of an undertone and is less explicit honestly. fuck lesbianism being in the subtext let’s make the fact she is an ancient supernatural being the subtext 🔥

anyways this might actually be my favourite classic. I LOVE LESBIANS!!!! 

this was an excellent and quick read. i love homoerotic vampires, so it was fun.

I want to challenge myself to read more classic books, and while I typically haven’t been a fan of classic books, I actually enjoyed this one a little. It was kind of fun to see where the inspiration for some of my favorite vampire characters came from. I was kind of disappointed to see that.

carmilla gets killed in the end

But overall, it was still a pretty good read, and one of my favorite classics I’ve ever read

I don’t want to say that it doesn’t hold up because again pretty solid read- however because of modern day vampire stories using a lot of the tropes from this and other classic vampire stories, it is very very predictable.

I recognize the importance of this book for being one of the first vampire stories to ever be published in the english language (and also, for strengthening the trope of the Lesbian Vampire™), but I do think it was a tiny bit underwhelming. The beginning was solid, and the gothic atmosphere was there, but as it went on, it felt like the author wasn't the best at developing characters or telling stories at all. The climax of the story felt very underwhelming, as if we were just being told a series of facts while reading a wikipedia page instead of living the scenes with the characters.
Also, the mystery aspect was not the best developed? While I know that being able to tell what was going on from a mile away was probably intentional, that wasn't really done in a way that makes it more interesting. I feel like, maybe, if the author gave us more specific scenes with the characters, scenes that had us observe them more closely and notice their intimacy, it would feel all the more vibrant and real, and the mystery aspect would make us feel more. But then again, it is a short story.
I feel like this is the kind of book that you could make a great adaptation out of (book, film, tv show), but as a standalone, it's just kind of okay.
I do really like it that they were lesbians tho. Laura was sooo in denial like Carmilla was like "I'm in love with you" and Laura was like "wow... so she's either a man in desguise and that's why she's in love with me, or she's in love with a guy somewhere and that's why she's acting so lovey-dovey around me. Because she likes someone else." Like GIRL!!!! SHE WANTS TO EAT YOU OUT!!!! DUMMY
Just feel like the lesbianism could've been a little more juicy as well!!!

Regarding this specific edition itself: just felt like they were enchendo linguiça, as we Brazilians like to say. Like, c'mon!!! This is supposed to be Carmilla!! It only says "Carmilla" on the cover!! It's fine that they added another old ass english vampire tale too, but then they started adding a shit ton of stuff that is so unnecessary !!! Like, the editor's letter regarding "Vampyre" is so unnecessarily long and fucking mysogynistic, and I know it at least mentions the context of this story (as to why and when it was written), but I got so fucking angry at that stupid fucking mysogynistic editor I didn't even give a damn. And then, after "Vampyre", they also added a nugu's letter about Lord Byron's vacation house in Greece??? Like, WHY???? HE DIDNT EVEN WRITE THE STORY???
The people who brought this edition together probably just wanted to make it longer to like. justify the price or something idfk

starting the Carmilla routine (waking up at 1pm and drinking hot chocolate) 

I loved 95% of this book, and will be coming back to it in the future.

One of the things I especially liked was that the lesbian relationship was incredibly obvious, but none of the characters seemed to have much a problem with it, despite the cultural attitudes of the time this book was published.

I only wish it were longer and gave more detail on the time they spent together, though I do understand this is intended to be read as a letter to the reader.

The only bit I don't like is the implications around the "vision" that starts the book.

Laura, the narrator, is 6 at the time this vision happens, which involves the (by that point) 150+ year old Carmilla being very intimate with her. Carmilla does later say that for her side of the vision, she saw Laura as an 18 year old not a 6 year old, but it still weirded me out to think about it.

I love this book. The lesbian vampire prototype and it lives up to the hype too. The writing style is sublime. The analysis you can do to even this shorter vampire story shows how masterfully crafted it is. I love it. I love Carmilla and Laura. Their love is text, not subtext. It’s very explicit how they feel romantic feelings for one another. This is a top tier entry in the lesbian literature catalogue, even if a man wrote it. It’s awesome and a must-read.