Carmilla

Carmilla (1872) is a novella by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Published twenty-six years before Bram Stoker¿s Dracula, Le Fanu¿s work of Gothic horror and mystery is considered an important early entry in the genre of vampire fiction.

Recorded in the casebook of Dr. Hesselius, a medical professional with a detective¿s sensibility, is the story of Laura, a teenager bearing a strange secret. Raised in a castle by her father, a widower who recently concluded his career in service to the Austrian Empire, Laura has been haunted since her youth, when she was visited at night by a beautiful, spectral woman. Now eighteen, she awaits the visit of Bertha Rheinfelt, a niece of her father¿s friend. When Bertha dies mysteriously, however, and when a girl named Carmilla is brought to the castle under strange circumstances, Laura fears that the past has come full circle. But she soon overcomes her mournful state, growing close with Carmilla. But the girl¿s behavior soon proves unsettling.