"To this hour the image of Carmilla returns to my memory with ambiguous alternations-sometimes the playful, languid, beautiful girl; sometimes the writhing fiend I saw in the ruined church. Sometimes, I start from a reverie, certain I heard the light step of Carmilla at the drawing-room door."
Isolated in a remote mansion in a central European forest, Laura longs for companionship-until a carriage accident brings another young woman into her life: the secretive and sometimes erratic Carmilla. As Carmilla's actions become more puzzling and volatile, Laura develops bizarre symptoms, and as her health goes into decline, Laura and her father discover something monstrous.
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's compelling tale of a young woman's seduction by a female vampire was a source of influence for Bram Stoker'sDracula, which it predates by over a quarter century. Carmilla was originally serialized from 1871 to 1872 and went on to inspire adaptations in film, opera, and beyond, including the cult classic web series by the same name.
"To this hour the image of Carmilla returns to my memory with ambiguous alternations-sometimes the playful, languid, beautiful girl; sometimes the writhing fiend I saw in the ruined church. Sometimes, I start from a reverie, certain I heard the light step of Carmilla at the drawing-room door."
Isolated in a remote mansion in a central European forest, Laura longs for companionship-until a carriage accident brings another young woman into her life: the secretive and sometimes erratic Carmilla. As Carmilla's actions become more puzzling and volatile, Laura develops bizarre symptoms, and as her health goes into decline, Laura and her father discover something monstrous.
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's compelling tale of a young woman's seduction by a female vampire was a source of influence for Bram Stoker'sDracula, which it predates by over a quarter century. Carmilla was originally serialized from 1871 to 1872 and went on to inspire adaptations in film, opera, and beyond, including the cult classic web series by the same name.
Carmen Maria Machado is the author of the bestselling memoir In
the Dream House, the graphic novel The Low, Low Woods, and the
award-winning short story collection Her Body and Other Parties.
She has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the winner
of the Bard Fiction Prize, the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian
Fiction, the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction, the
Brooklyn Public Library Literature Prize, the Shirley Jackson
Award, and the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize.
In 2018, the New York Times listed Her Body and Other Parties as a
member of "The New Vanguard," one of "15 remarkable books by women
that are shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st
century."
Her essays, fiction, poetry, and criticism have appeared in the New
Yorker, the New York Times, Granta, Vogue, This American Life,
Harper's Bazaar, Tin House, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, The
Believer, Guernica, Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, Best
American Nonrequired Reading, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from
the Iowa Writers' Workshop and has been awarded fellowships and
residencies from the Guggenheim Foundation, The Pew Center for Arts
& Heritage, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and the Millay Colony for the Arts.
She is the former Abrams Artist-in-Residence at the University of
Pennsylvania.
"Machado’s work as editor is vitally important to this new edition
. . . Machado reminds us of the problematic aspects of this seminal
work, but she also invites readers, whether they are fans of
vampire tales or not, to dive in and experience a book that birthed
a trope."—Booklist
"I can’t think of a better guide through this ethereal, infuriating
book than Carmen Machado—whose Borgesian imagination unearths for
us the possibilities buried in its pages."—Jordan Hall, co-creator
& writer of Carmilla: The Series “Believe me when I say
that this version of Joseph Sheridan le Fanu’s classic is
indispensable if you want a vampire library.”—Mary Kay McBrayer for
Book Riot
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