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[Flashback] Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

Chris Well

“You are mine, you shall be mine, and you and I are one for ever.”

1872 Gothic novella Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu is one of the early works of vampire fiction. In fact, the book came 26 years before Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). First published as a serial in 1871, Carmilla—steeped in the sexual tension between two young women—this cult classic which influenced all the vampire stories that followed, including Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles.

In an isolated castle deep in the Austrian forest, teenaged Laura leads a solitary life with only her father, attendant and tutor for company. Until one moonlit night, a horse-drawn carriage crashes into view, carrying an unexpected guest — the beautiful Carmilla.

So begins a feverish friendship between Laura and her entrancing new companion, one defined by mysterious happenings and infused with an implicit but undeniable eroticism. As Carmilla becomes increasingly strange and volatile, prone to eerie nocturnal wanderings, Laura finds herself tormented by nightmares and growing weaker by the day…

What influence did Carmilla have on Dracula?

Carmilla heavily influenced the later novel Dracula. As Slate points out, the aesthetic of the female vampire, for example, is very much the same in both stories. “But what makes Carmilla so endearing are not its similarities to other works of the genre but its distinct differences.”

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The Real Inspiration Behind Dracula: Carmilla | GammaRay

From GammaRay:

“There’s no question that Dracula is always going to get top billing. Neck and neck with Sherlock Holmes as the single most adopted literary character in history Dracula’s legacy has permeated film, TV, stage, comics, and beyond to earn the Count the title of pop culture’s quintessential vampire. But did you know that a number of the tropes associated with Dracula actually began with another blue blooded creature of the night? A Countess who not only helped lay the foundation for vampire stories we know today, but also became a significant figure in queer history in the process.”

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