![]() Laura's health declines, and her father has a doctor examine her. In another nightmare, Laura hears a voice say, "Your mother warns you to beware of the assassin," and a sudden light reveals Carmilla standing at the foot of her bed, her nightdress drenched in blood. The beast then takes the form of a female figure and disappears through the door without opening it. The beast springs onto the bed and Laura feels something like two needles, an inch or two apart, darting deep into her breast. Carmilla suggests that she might be descended from the Karnsteins, though the family died out centuries before.ĭuring Carmilla's stay, Laura has nightmares of a large, cat-like beast entering her room. ![]() The portrait resembles Carmilla exactly, down to the mole on her neck. When a shipment of restored heirloom paintings arrives, Laura finds a portrait of her ancestor, Mircalla, Countess Karnstein, dated 1698. Carmilla bursts out in rage and scolds Laura, complaining that the hymn hurts her ears. When the funeral procession of one such victim passes by the two girls, Laura joins in the funeral hymn. Meanwhile, young women and girls in the nearby towns have begun dying from an unknown malady. Her secrecy is not the only mysterious thing about Carmilla she never joins the household in its prayers, she sleeps much of the day, and she seems to sleepwalk outside at night. Carmilla refuses to tell anything about herself, despite questioning by Laura. She sometimes makes romantic advances towards Laura. Laura comments that this information seems needless to say, and her father laughs it off.Ĭarmilla and Laura grow to be very close friends, but occasionally Carmilla's mood abruptly changes. Before she leaves, she sternly notes that her daughter will not disclose any information whatsoever about her family, past, or herself, and that Carmilla is of sound mind. She arranges to leave her daughter with Laura and her father until she can return in three months. Both girls instantly recognise each other from the "dream" they both had when they were young.Ĭarmilla appears injured after her carriage accident, but her mysterious mother informs Laura's father that her journey is urgent and cannot be delayed. A carriage accident outside Laura's home unexpectedly brings a girl of Laura's age into the family's care. Laura, saddened by the loss of a potential friend, longs for a companion. The General ambiguously concludes that he will discuss the circumstances in detail when they meet later. The General was supposed to visit them with his niece, Bertha Rheinfeldt, but Bertha suddenly died under mysterious circumstances. Twelve years later, Laura and her father are admiring the sunset in front of the castle when her father tells her of a letter from his friend, General Spielsdorf. All the household assure Laura that it was just a dream, but they step up security as well and there is no subsequent vision or visitation. She later claims to have been punctured in her breast, although no wound was found. When she was six, Laura had a vision of a very beautiful visitor in her bedchamber. Laura, the teenaged protagonist, narrates, beginning with her childhood in a "picturesque and solitary" castle amid an extensive forest in Styria, where she lives with her father, a wealthy English widower retired from service to the Austrian Empire. Hesselius, whose departures from medical orthodoxy rank him as the first occult detective in literature. ![]() Le Fanu presents the story as part of the casebook of Dr. Isabella Mazzanti illustrated the book's 2014 edition, published by Editions Soleil and translated by Gaid Girard. Consequently, confusion has arisen relating the pictures to the plot. Comparing the work of two illustrators of the story, David Henry Friston and Michael Fitzgerald-whose work appears in the magazine article but not in modern printings of the book-reveals inconsistencies in the characters' depictions. The story is often anthologised, and has been adapted many times in film and other media.Ĭarmilla, serialised in the literary magazine The Dark Blue in late 1871 and early 1872, was reprinted in Le Fanu's short-story collection In a Glass Darkly (1872). ![]() The character is a prototypical example of the lesbian vampire, expressing romantic desires toward the protagonist. First published as a serial in The Dark Blue (1871–72), the story is narrated by a young woman preyed upon by a female vampire named Carmilla, later revealed to be Mircalla, Countess Karnstein (Carmilla is an anagram of Mircalla). 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 (1897) by 26 years. ![]()
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