Vampire stories are no longer a novelty, they haven’t been for a while. Ever since the popularization of stories like Bram Stoker’s Dracula and cult classics like Nosferatu, they have been everywhere. From romantic series like Twilight (Stephanie Meyer) and The Coldest Girl in Cold town (Holly Black) to mockumentaries like What We Do in The Shadows (Taika Waititi). All of these stories are widely popular and well-known. However, there is still a story that has hardly been explored despite the fact that without it, there would be no Dracula in the first place.
Carmilla was written in 1872 by Sheridan Le Fanu, almost 25 years before Dracula’s publication. Sheridan Le Fanu was an Irish writer of Gothic tales, mystery novels, and horror fiction.
The story follows Laura, the young woman preyed upon by a female vampire named Carmilla. Laura lives isolated in a castle in the middle of the Styrian Forest, with only her elderly father for company. One night, a carriage arrives with an unexpected guest, a beautiful woman named Carmilla. Laura immediately is drawn to Carmilla, and so Laura starts a strange friendship with her mysterious companion. However, as time progresses, Laura starts having dreams from which she wakes up after feeling a puncture in her breast. At the same time, Carmilla’s behavior becomes more volatile, and unpredictable, she acts strange and is prone to wandering in the middle of the night. While everyone starts suspecting Carmilla, Laura grows weaker and weaker every day.
The story of Carmilla not only pre-dates most mainstream vampire stories but is also hailed as one of the first lesbian vampire stories. As in any good gothic romance, sexual tension, and eroticism is ingrained in the story, “‘I have been in love with no one, and never shall,’ she whispered, ‘unless it should be with you.’ How beautiful she looked in the moonlight! Shy and strange was the look with which she quickly hid her face in my neck and hair, with tumultuous sighs, that seemed almost to sob, and pressed in mine a hand that trembled. Her soft cheek was glowing against mine. ‘Darling, darling,’ she murmured, ‘I live in you; and you would die for me, I love you so.’”
Sheridan Le Fanu’s book Carmilla opened the inspired stories like Dracula by Bram Stoker and The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, yet it is hardly ever mentioned as one of the classics that started the lore. But as times change, Carmilla, the first female vampire of literature, should be given a chance to have the spotlight.
