Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla: The First Female Vampire

Joseph Sheridan le Fanu was the leading ghost-story writer of the nineteenth century, and he is now seen as central to the development of the genre in the Victorian era. His work is credited with turning the Gothic's focus from the external sources of horror to the inward effects of terror, thus helping to create the psychological basis for supernaturalist literature that continues to this day. First published in 1872, le Fanu's novella 'Carmilla' tells the story of a young woman falling for the chamrs of a female vampire, and predates Bram Stoker's Dracula by 25 years. Many of the earliest and most interesting vampire stories, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.