Carmilla: A Critical Edition (Irish Studies)
First serialized in the journal "The Dark Blue" and published shortly thereafter in the short story collection In a Glass Darkly, Le Fanu's 1872 vampire tale is in many ways the overlooked older sister of Bram Stoker's more acclaimed Dracula. A thrilling gothic tale, Carmilla tells the story of a young woman lured by the charms of a female vampire.
This edition includes a student-oriented introduction, tracing the major critical responses to Carmilla, and four interdisciplinary essays by leading scholars who analyze the story from a variety of theoretical perspectives. Ranging from politics to gender, Gothicism to feminism, and nineteenth-century aestheticism to contemporary film studies, these critical yet accessible articles model the diverse ways that scholars can approach a single text. With a glossary, biography, bibliography, and explanatory notes on the text, this edition is ideal for students of Irish and British nineteenth-century literature.BUY THE BOOK
Community Reviews
The best piece of vampire fiction I’ve ever read.
Pre-dating Bram Stoker’s Dracula by nearly 70 years, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu weaves an atmospheric Gothic tale that basically created the vampire aesthetic for English-speaking audiences. Especially after reading Coleridge’s Christabel poem, I appreciate the horrific images that Le Fanu creates here. It is genuinely terrifying imagining the plot playing out visually, quite akin to the spookier scenes from the silent film Nosferatu.
Reading this novella in a post-Twilight world, it’s actually rather funny how the vampire tropes play out in Carmilla. Our eponymous vampire treats her beloved mortal Laura very similarly to Edward’s treatment of Bella. Intense confessions of passion intermixed with near-apathy and brooding. Except Laura acknowledges how effing weird that is! If Carmilla wasn’t practically inventing these tropes, I would have supposed that it is trying to subvert them.
There’s a lot of ways that Carmilla can be politically, sexually, and culturally interpreted, but the novella is still a great spooky short read. I think it helps to have read other works from around this period to sink fast into the writing style, but I think anyone can find enjoyment Le Fanu’s Anglo-Irish Gothic masterwork.
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