So, I'm a literature scholar starting major research into Roberta Williams's Phantasmagoria. I've done previous work on King's Quest already (taking a feminist stance on that).
What interests me most is the appearance of Polidori's The Vampyre in the game. If I hadn't read the book in a class before I bought the game, I would have thought that Williams made it up, it's so obscure. The best I can come up with so far about this is that it's probably an invitation to read Carno as being something like the Byronic Lord Ruthven in The Vampyre, which would make Malcolm into an Aubrey/Polidori figure. I can't really think of any other reason to choose this particular text; it's not considered very well written, and its primary claim to fame is that it's the first English-language vampire novel--which isn't very relevant to a game that's about demonic possession, not vampires.
So I'm wondering what your thoughts on Polidori's appearance in the game are/were--did you get the allusion when you first played the game, or what did you make of the book?
I'm also curious what other connections you see that I might look into as I do my research. I'm aware that Lewis Carroll wrote a work called Phantasmagoria, but I haven't read it yet. Has anyone read it? Are there connections there?
As we all know, Roberta Williams likes making very learned allusions in her games, and her games put a lot of emphasis on narrative structure, which make them excellent fodder for a literary games-as-text discussion, so I'm really curious to know what kind of themes/connections/allusions/motifs you found when you played.

She probably wouldn't reply directly, but you could ask Ken Williams on his message board, http://www.sierragamers.com/aspx/m/634063 and he could pass on any questions to Roberta.

Thanks. I've posted the question there as well.
However, I'm really interested in user-analysis, since it's widely agreed in both literary and game studies that there's more to a work than author intent (although author intent, in my very traditional training, is very important). It's generally recognized that any scholarly approach to games must take into account the player experience.
So I'm really curious what other users thought of this, and what themes they saw in the game. Any takers?