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Carmilla

Pagehush Classics Famous stories, poems and fables that are old enough to be … Follow

In a lonely castle in Styria, young Laura lives quietly with her father, until a carriage crashes nearby and its passenger, a beautiful girl called Carmilla, comes to stay. The vampire story that came before Dracula. By Sheridan Le Fanu (1872). A public-domain classic.

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How it begins Upon a paper attached to the Narrative which follows, Doctor Hesselius has written a rather elaborate note, which he accompanies with a reference to his Essay on the strange subject which the MS. illuminates.This mysterious subject he treats, in that Essay, with his usual learning and acumen, and with remarkable directness and condensation. It will form but one volume of the series of that extraordinary man’s collected papers. Keep reading →

About this story

Laura, a young woman living with her father in a remote castle in Styria, in Austria, is delighted when a carriage accident leaves a girl of her own age, Carmilla, to stay with them as a guest. They become close friends very quickly. But Laura starts to have strange dreams, and a sickness spreads through the nearby villages.

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, an Irish writer, published it in 1872, twenty-five years before Dracula, and Bram Stoker was influenced by it. Laura tells the story herself, years later. It is slow and atmospheric, and one of the earliest vampire stories in English.

Themes: Fear, friendship, desire, the supernatural
Good for: Readers who like old-fashioned Gothic stories, or want to see what came before Dracula
Worth noticing: How the narrator explains her feelings about Carmilla, and what she leaves out.

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