Carmilla

by Joseph Sheridan Lefanu, Carmen Maria Machado (Editor)

Overview

“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’s Dracula, 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781941360385
Publisher:	Lanternfish Press
Publication date:	11/26/2019
Series:	Clockwork Editions , #2
Pages:	144
Sales rank:	14,686
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

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.

What People are Saying About This

co-creator & writer of Carmilla: The Series Jordan Hall

"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."

Editorial Reviews

"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

From the Publisher

"[Machado's] notes and introduction transform the novel from Victorian Gothic into postmodern Gothic, which makes this edition of Carmilla something the original text never was."

Katharine Coldiron for Vol. 1 Brooklyn

"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

HGenerally acknowledged as a major influence on Bram Stoker's Dracula, this novel, originally published in 1872, is the very first vampire thriller. Le Fanu, often compared to Poe, was a Victorian writer whose tales of the occult have inspired horror writers for more than a century. Seemingly by happenstance, the mysterious and beautiful Carmilla comes to stay with the young and virtuous Laura. Laura, who has been living a lonely existence with her father in an isolated castle, finds herself enchanted with her exotic visitor. As the two become close friends, however, Laura dreams of nocturnal visitations and begins to lose her physical strength. Through much investigation, the gruesome truth about Carmilla and her family is revealed. Though the basic premise of the story, that of evil targeting pure innocence, is familiar to anyone who is vampire savvy, this haunting tale is surprisingly fresh, avoids clich and builds well to its climax. Particularly interesting are the sexual overtones that develop between the two women. Follows's reading is flawless. In particular, her ability to capture Laura's na vet so convincingly will have listeners feeling almost as shocked as Laura as the unwholesome truth unravels. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly