Vampires...but not the ones you think

Three vampire tales and not even one Olivia Rodrigo

When you think of vampires, you probably think of Count Dracula (or maybe Twilight? I haven’t read or seen Twilight…don’t hate me). Even in 2023, Dracula is still the most common version of the vampire in American culture: a tall, pale, aristocratic man whose dangerous sexuality threatens vulnerable young women. But my recommendations this week diverge from this familiar path — some of the vampires below are queer, some aren’t white, some appear well before Dracula, and all of them are women. Intrigued? Read on!

A very incomplete history of vampires in British literature (and a detour into Frankenstein)

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) is the most famous vampire story in British literature, but it was not the first. A handful of works predate it, including one by John Polidori called, shockingly, The Vampyre (1819). This is a favorite of mine, not because it’s especially good — I’ve read it once and that’s plenty — but because of its origin story: The Vampyre and my beloved Frankenstein emerge from the same haunted summer.

The story of the haunted summer goes like this. It’s 1816, and Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and Byron’s physician, John Polidori, have decamped to Switzerland for the summer. Due to a volcanic eruption, the weather was unusually dark and cold, driving the friends inside and leaving them with little to do. In order to amuse themselves, Byron suggested a ghost-story competition. Polidori wrote The Vampyre, Frankenstein came to Mary in a dream, and Percy ran screaming from the room after reading Coleridge’s Christabel. Who cares what Byron wrote. Was it the greatest Gothic novel of all time? I don’t think so.

(Side note: if this taste of Mary Shelley’s totally wild and fascinating life makes you want to know more, I strongly recommend this joint biography of Mary and her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft.)

I’m sorry, is this a Frankenstein newsletter? What do I actually need to know about vampires?

Okay, okay. Back to vampires. I said my recommendations aren’t similar to Dracula, but Stoker’s book brings up two useful themes: (1) female sexuality and (2) fear of difference.

Female sexuality

In the novel, Count Dracula is a sexual predator — a threat to the purity of young women like Lucy and Mina. Spoiler: Lucy is compromised, but Mina isn’t. Even though Lucy is a victim, the book suggests that she was vulnerable to Dracula because of her loose morals (in contrast to Mina, whose stronger values fortify her). Yep — classic blame the victim logic here. In this way, Dracula reflects high anxiety about female sexual desire in Victorian England: what monsters would be unleashed if British women gave into their sexual impulses? Shut it down now! A similar anxiety is visible in both Carmilla and Christabel (see recs below).

Fear of difference

Relatedly, Dracula reveals a profound anxiety about anyone who isn’t British. As Jonathan Harker goes deeper into Transylvania, everything becomes stranger, more uncomfortable, and less “civilized.” Count Dracula is the dangerous foreigner — a common type in Gothic novels — whose values threaten to undermine the very foundations of British society.

The Gothic is not an inherently conservative genre, but it often functions that way. In Dracula, for example, the book reinforces readers’ fear of outsiders and rewards those characters who maintain British values. Similarly, women who transgress Victorian norms of female sexuality, like Lucy, are punished, while those who abide by them, like Mina, are rewarded. In other words, Dracula upholds the status quo (but allows readers to experience a little thrill of vicarious transgression along the way).

Recommendations

Without further ado, this week’s recs.

Carmilla (1872) by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

The queer Gothic vampire story of your dreams. (But written in 1872, by a man, so, you know…adjust your expectations accordingly.) Published 25 years before Dracula, Carmilla is the story of a young woman who is haunted/seduced by a beautiful stranger. Whereas many vampire stories rely on fear of difference, Carmilla asks: what if the vampire looks just like you? 😱😱😱 Le Fanu gives you all the transgressive thrill of Dracula, but does so in 100 pages to Dracula’s 500. Read if you’re looking for a shorter, less heteronormative version of Dracula that will still scratch that Victorian Gothic itch. Bonus: the edition I’ve linked to is edited by Carmen Maria Machado (author of last week’s In the Dream House).

Christabel (written 1797, 1800) by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

A bit of a wild card, but while we’re on the subject of queer vampires, why not give Coleridge’s iconic narrative poem Christabel a try? The innocent young Christabel meets a mysterious woman in the woods in the middle of the night…and then they get in bed together. Not everyone agrees that Christabel is a vampire story, but some readers think Christabel directly influenced Le Fanu when he was writing Carmilla. I know a narrative poem written in 1797 is kind of a hard sell, but nothing beats Part I of Christabel for Gothic mood. Coleridge is my favorite poet, and Christabel is a great example of his flair for the dramatic. Plus: aren’t you curious what made Percy Shelley run screaming from the room? The perfect activity for this year’s Halloween party.

Fledgling (2005) by Octavia Butler

This book is SO GOOD. Shori, a 53-year-old vampire who looks like a young girl, wakes up with no memory of her previous life and has to piece together what happened to her. As a mystery, Fledgling is very engaging — I read late into the night, eager to find out what happens next. Butler is working in the same tradition as Le Fanu and Stoker, but she revises that tradition in fascinating ways (I’m being a little vague here because I don’t want to spoil anything, but trust me, it’s good). One big change from other vampire stories is that Shori is our narrator, meaning that we sympathize with the vampire rather than viewing her as a fearful monster. Like Dracula, Fledgling is very much about fear of difference; but where Dracula reinforces the status quo, Fledgling challenges it. If you’re looking for Gothic mood, Fledgling might not be the book for you, but I really can’t say enough good things about it. Also: it took me about 60 pages to get into this book, but after that I was completely hooked.

That’s all for this week! See you Tuesday with a meditation on why people even like the Gothic.

Run for your life.