The latest issue of Booklist has my review of Carmilla. Don't know what that book is? Well good thing a brand new edition is coming out because you should. Before writing this review I ran a quick search in my consortia catalog and the ownership ratio between Dracula and Carmilla is about 100 to 1. And I might be underestimating. That needs to change and this edition can do that.
Let's move to the review of this seminal novella that every library should own, edited by the fantastic Carmen Maria Machado.
Carmilla.
Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan (author) and Machado, Carmen Maria (editor).Apr. 2019. 160p. Lanternfish, paper, $12 (9781941360194).
First published April 15, 2019 (Booklist).
Does you library own at least one copy of Dracula? Probably more than 1 if you count different formats. Yet, how many of you have, Carmilla, the Gothic vampire novella that predates Stoker’s novel by 25 years in your collection? Thankfully a brand new edition of this seminal tale about the relationship between a female vampire, Carmilla, and her young, innocent friend Laura, is being reissued with an introduction by National Book Award finalist Carmen Maria Machado which grounds this surprisingly sexual novella, told through a frame of found letters in which Laura describes in detail how she is both drawn to and repelled by Carmilla, in the historical documents and real people upon which it was based. Machado’s work as editor is vitally important to this new edition in three ways. Her fascinating introduction sheds light on the scholarly research into the real women behind this fantastic tale and her annotations and slight modernization of the language make this classic more easily accessible to today’s vampire crazed readers, but it is in her insistence to not restore the “missing” portions of the real letters, to choose to keep the story as LeFanu intended it where this edition shines. With this act, Machado reminds us of the problematic aspects of this seminal work, but she also invites readers, whether they are fans of vampires tale or not, to dive in and experience a book that birthed a trope.
Further Appeal: There is not much more to say other than this is an important book and Machado's new edition sets it up brilliantly for today's reader. It places the title in history and provides discussion of the scholarly research that has been done in regards to this seminal work.
And it is short. And inexpensive.
This book will circulate. Buy it.
Three Words That Describe This Book: LGBTQ, modernization of a classic, vampires
Readalikes: Of course any vampire novel and if you haven't read Her Body and Other Parties by Machado yet, you should. But really any horror classic is a readalike, as are today's horror stories that look at women's issues. Here is a recent example that I loved [with more readalikes]-- The Rust Maidens by Gwendolyn Kiste
I know this is a short review, but the book sells itself. I just need to make sure you all know about it so you can add it to your collections and get it on display for patrons ASAP. I know Dracula circs well already. Camilla can and should go out just as much.
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