Customer Reviews

Carmilla: The Inspiration for Dracula

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Every Halloween I like to re-read the first 4 chapters of "Dracula." Those 4 chapters create the greatest vampire story ever written. However after the first 4 chapters Bram Stoker's epistilary style bogs down, becomes tiring and very out of date. Thirty years ago I discovered LeFanu's novelette, "Carmilla" and found the best vampire story that can be read.
Carmilla was written over 130 years ago but still bears the marks of a stylish and well crafted story. LeFanu, an Irish writer, created a cursed family whose vamire descendant preys on two modern (for the 19th century) families. The story is rich in atmosphere and is filled with the vampire trappings that Bram Stoker later wove into Dracula. But the best feature of Carmilla is similar to the best feature of Dracula---they both create really evil vampire figures. But there is a complexity to Carmilla that has been argued by readers for 130 years. Is there a lesbian touch to Carmilla or is it a straight (no pun) forward vampire story? LeFanu teases the reader with a story that must have thrilled the Victorian world that first read Carmilla.
I must say that if I were going out to buy Carmilla I would turn to the Dover publication of, "The Best Ghost Stories of J. S. LeFanu." The Dover edition has several other ghost stories by LeFanu and Carmilla has some of the original illustrations that appeared in British periodicals.
If your taste is for vampire stories Carmilla, like the first 4 chapters of Dracula, is a great horror reading. Both show us powerful vampire villians. Both build to wonderful horror climaxes. Both show us that you have to be Irish to create a great vampire story. Halloween is always coming.