Carmilla

The foremost teller of scary stories in his day and a profound influence on both the novelists and filmmakers of the 20th century, Anglo-Irish author JOSEPH THOMAS SHERIDAN LE FANU (1814–1873) has, sadly, fallen out of scholarly and popular favor, and unfairly so. To this day, contemporary readers who happen across his works praise his talent for weaving a tense literary atmosphere tinged by the supernatural and bolstered by hints of ambiguous magic.

“Carmilla” is Le Fanu’s 1872 novella—also included in the collection of short fiction In a Glass Darkly—of lesbian vampirism, a chilling and terrifying tale of a young girl who comes under the evil influence of a female vampire. The prototype of an entire subgenre of vampire fiction, a clear inspiration for Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula, and the source material for countless movies, this is one of the more significant yet least appreciated works of pop culture of the past two centuries.

With a series of new editions of Le Fanu’s works, Cosimo is proud to reintroduce modern book lovers to the writings of the early master of suspense fiction who pioneered the concept of “psychological horror.”