Carmilla

Sink your teeth into the cult classic that inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula.Fear sweeps the countryside as people fall victim to a strange illness.After a peculiar accident, beautiful Mircalla becomes a ward at Laura’s family home.Soon, friendship blooms between the mysterious Mircalla and curious Laura.Love is in the air, but so is something deadly.Will Mircalla’s secret cost Laura her life?Carmilla, first published in 1872, is one of the first vampire novels ever written, predating Dracula by 26 years. Carmilla, with its themes of vampirism and homosexuality, shocked the standards and stereotypes for women set in the Victorian era. Today, Carmilla is considered the original archetype of female and LGBTQ vampires and Le Fanu’s influence is seen throughout vampire fiction.

About the Author

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu was the leading Gothic horror writer during the nineteenth century. Born in Ireland in 1814, he grew up in a literary family and began writing for the Dublin University Magazine in 1838. He published his first ghost story, "The Ghost and the Bone-Setter," in 1838. His most notable work, Carmilla, published in 1872, was the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula. Le Fanu's other notable works include The House by the Churchyard (1863), Wylder's Hand (1864), Uncle Silas: A Tale of Bartram-Haugh (1864), Guy Deverell (1865), and In a Glass Darkly (1871). Le Fanu is widely considered to be the father of the English ghost story. He died in 1873, one year after his most prolific work, Carmilla, was published. It is rumored that he "died of fright."

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