Name: Carmilla
Rating: 3.874485596707819 (486 reviews)
ISBN: 9780815633112

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

Kathleen Costello-Sullivan

Text of and critical essays on the 1872 vampire tale chronicling the experiences of a young woman lured by the charms of a female vampire.

A Critical Edition

Carmilla

Carmilla is an 1872 Gothic novella by Irish author Sheridan Le Fanu and one of the early works of vampire fiction, predating Bram Stoker's Dracula by 25 years.

Tim Pendry

Le Fanu's 'Carmilla' (1872) is a short vampire tale that is interesting for two reasons other than that it works as story-telling. It is a bridge between the vampire lore of Eastern Europe as it had started to appear in English literature and 'Dracula'. It also has an unusual erotic aspect for the time. It easily breaks into two halves. The first is the account of a vampire incursion in a Gothic setting where the reader can work out what is happening fairly quickly but not the human protagonists. The second unfolds the horror as explanation, leading to the necessary decapitation of the monster. Le Fanu manages to make the story both English and foreign by having the family under threat as minor aristocratic tea-drinkers of ultimately English extraction who have settled in mysterious Styria after the father's service in the Austrian interest. European aristocratic expectations and norms, including a protective attitude towards young daughters and 'wards', drive the story along but it is also clear that the predator species is of even higher local aristocratic lineage. The imperial service class is threatened by the ghosts of a more ancient independent aristocracy without moral bounds and interested only in their own pleasures. The seeds of Anne Rice's vampires are here although Le Fanu's Anglo-Irish descent is probably of more interest. The story undoubtedly influenced another Anglo-Irish writer, Bram Stoker, whose 'Dracula', a quarter of a century later, would further develop some of the motifs of this tale, weakening and transferring the eroticism from a female to male predator from an even darker barbaric aristocratic background. There is much written (exaggerated in my view) about vampirism as metaphor for the relationship between England and Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century but Anglo-Irish ambivalence about the English ruling class to which it played a supporting role may have been a factor here. What is more interesting is that the story is highly emotional. The old general who uncovers the vampiric evil appears to lose his reason (he does not) in hunting it down. There is tenderness, warmth and love within the households on which the vampire prey. But the most intense emotion is the most ambiguous - the undoubted erotic charge between predator vampire (a woman presenting as a girl) and its victims, very young and vulnerable women. The predator offers something that disturbs and attracts at the same time. It is obviously sexual. Le Fanu is exploring the disruptive power of desire. The vampires usually just take what they want as clinical murderous blood-sucking but (it seems) periodically (this was adopted by Stoker in 'Dracula'), they become obsessively interested in one beautiful victim who they 'groom'. It is this process of 'grooming' that becomes fascinating because the account, ostensibly about a vampire, is, in fact, about seduction in Victorian society and, equally, about the vulnerability of 'innocence' in a world that is so good that it cannot recognise evil when it presents itself. As readers we do not have to be enormously bright to get what is happening but, equally, there is no reason for the protagonists to identify evil when evil is not part of their cosy and kindly world of mutual care and regard. When tragedy strikes, it is beyond understanding. It shatters survivors. The reader sits horrified as evil seduces the innocent in a way that makes the grand guignol of the final decapitation relatively trivial as horror. The innocent are only a 'kiss' or touch away from death - or would it be a 'fate worse than death' as Victorian culture understood this concept? Loss of sexual innocence in the middle classes and existence as the undead are brought into alignment as 'fates worse than death', made all the more terrifying by Le Fanu's ability to reproduce the pleasures of seduction and the modes of grooming alongside an implication of an evil eternal life. Incidentally, the Hammer Horror 'Karnstein Trilogy' based on 'Carmilla' is camp fun with 'The Vampire Lovers' (1970), the first in the series, not quite faithful to the original story and a 'cult favourite' if only because it goes wonderfully overboard with its portrayal of the lesbian erotic.

M. Sosotris

It’s funny when you go back to the OG Vampire story, it feels incredibly cliche and predictable. This story predates Dracula by two decades, so all the tropes were new, at this point. Even still, I loved the atmosphere and the spooky imagery. It’s a quick read, and a fun one for vampire fans. Plus, the homoerotic undertones are ahead of their time, and a big influence on the genre as a whole.

Full text. One of the early works of vampire fiction, predating Bram Stoker's Dracula by 26 years. Carmilla tales the story of a gorgeous and mysterious woman named Carmilla who, by chance, ends up residing with a young, na�ve woman embodying sheer virtue, known as Laura. Carmilla has been in a carriage accident, and so is left in the care of Laura's father. Though depicted as virtuous, Laura has been living a solitary life, holed up with her father in his isolated castle in the Styrian countryside. Perhaps because of this isolation both geographically and emotionally, Laura becomes enchanted very quickly by Carmilla and her mysterious personality...

Nearly perfectly paced and wonderfully spooky. The atmosphere sets in immediately, thick as fog rolling in from wooded hills. Having seen and loved a few of the Hammer adaptations, I was pleasantly surprised to see just how faithfully and lovingly they adapted the source; much of the camp and sexuality of those films actually comes straight from the text. Carmilla and Laura are so clearly enamoured with each other beyond mere friendship. Carmilla is as much an obsessed, codependent lover as a cat playing with her food; and Laura is obviously terrified not only of the few truly frightening encounters she experiences, but also of the intensity of her mutual, forbidden infatuation.

The anagrammatic names are quite silly, sure, and the conclusion is wrapped up a little awkwardly and too quickly. But it’s beautifully written, full of repressed lust and genuine, nightmarish horror. There was no way I wouldn’t love this.

(I read this almost entirely by candlelight past midnight. Highly recommend.)

Michael Klepacki

Nearly perfectly paced and wonderfully spooky. The atmosphere sets in immediately, thick as fog rolling in from wooded hills. Having seen and loved a few of the Hammer adaptations, I was pleasantly surprised to see just how faithfully and lovingly they adapted the source; much of the camp and sexuality of those films actually comes straight from the text. Carmilla and Laura are so clearly enamoured with each other beyond mere friendship. Carmilla is as much an obsessed, codependent lover as a cat playing with her food; and Laura is obviously terrified not only of the few truly frightening encounters she experiences, but also of the intensity of her mutual, forbidden infatuation.

The anagrammatic names are quite silly, sure, and the conclusion is wrapped up a little awkwardly and too quickly. But it’s beautifully written, full of repressed lust and genuine, nightmarish horror. There was no way I wouldn’t love this.

(I read this almost entirely by candlelight past midnight. Highly recommend.)

Carmilla would love the life on the internet especially with cyber account and I'm very sure of it

loveeeeed this book so nicely written and simple

evie coxon

Anna 

Now, I don’t want to upset the Oscar Wilde stans, but THIS is what I thought I was going to get with that ugly portrait book. This was written 18 years before that novel and gave me everything I wanted out of a queer classic, short of a happy ending. I find it funny that this was supposed to warn readers against sexual exploration and freedom but created a sapphic narrative to be consumed by gays for generations to come. I thought this was very easy to read. There weren’t any long, drawn out passages that made me roll my eyes at the pretentiousness of them. It was beautiful and to the point. I’m not a huge fan of classics thus far, but it’s ones like these that keep me interested in consuming more. 

Nik ✨

Now, I don’t want to upset the Oscar Wilde stans, but THIS is what I thought I was going to get with that ugly portrait book. This was written 18 years before that novel and gave me everything I wanted out of a queer classic, short of a happy ending. I find it funny that this was supposed to warn readers against sexual exploration and freedom but created a sapphic narrative to be consumed by gays for generations to come. I thought this was very easy to read. There weren’t any long, drawn out passages that made me roll my eyes at the pretentiousness of them. It was beautiful and to the point. I’m not a huge fan of classics thus far, but it’s ones like these that keep me interested in consuming more. 



You are mine, you shall be mine, you and I are one for ever. One of the most hugely influential vampire stories of all time, Le Fanu's Carmilla was written before Bram Stoker's Dracula. A true gothic novel, it is eery, rich in character and place and bathed in blood and moonlight. When a mysterious carriage crashes outside their castle home in Styria, Austria, Laura and her father agree to take in its injured passenger, a young woman named Carmilla. Delighted to have some company of her own age, Laura is instantly drawn to Carmilla. But as their friendship grows, Carmilla's character changes and she becomes increasingly secretive and volatile. As Carmilla's moods shift and change, Laura starts to become ill, experiencing fiendish nightmares, her health deteriorating night after night. It is not until she and her father, increasingly concerned for Laura's well-being, set out on a trip to discover more about the mysterious Carmilla that the terrifying truth reveals itself...

Listened to the Audible Dramatization. Did not expect the ending still!

Carmilla A Critical Edition

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