Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s vampire novella Carmilla was serialised in the magazine The Dark Blue in late 1871 and early 1872. Later in 1872 it was included in the short story collection In a Glass Darkly, which featured various cases investigated by Dr Hesselius. Carmilla is historically important for a number of reasons. It was an early example of a vampire tale involving a female vampire, it was a very early example of a lesbian vampire story (although Coleridge’s 1797 poem Christabel has been claimed by some as an earlier example) and Dr Hesselius is the prototype of the occult detective. But in fact Dr Hesselius plays no actual part in Carmilla.

Irishman Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873) wrote many excellent gothic horror and ghost stories as well as some of the finest examples of the Victorian sensation novel (such as Wylder’s Hand), one of the ancestors of the detective story.

Laura is an English girl in her late teens who lives with her father and her governess in an isolated castle in Austria. Laura is happy enough but a girl her age naturally gets rather lonely in such a situation. She is naturally overjoyed when a happy accident brings her a young female companion, Carmilla. The carriage in which Carmilla and her mother were travelling overturned. Luckily nobody was hurt but Carmilla was badly shaken. Her mother is distressed. She cannot break her journey for a moment but Carmilla is in no state to travel. Laura’s father very gallantly offers to allow Carmilla to stay in the castle for three months, until her mother returns.

There is one thing that disturbs Laura. As a little girl she had been frightened by a vivid dream in which a female figure had climbed onto her bed. And Carmilla looks exactly like the female in that dream. Oddly enough Carmilla tells Laura that she had a similar dream at the same time.

The mood in the nearby countryside is sombre. A number of young women have died rather suddenly, after claiming to be attacked in some mysterious way. As Laura and Carmilla pass the funeral of one of these women Carmilla’s behaviour becomes rather odd.

There was also the incident with the old travelling entertainer/huckster, who claimed that Carmilla’s teeth needed to be filed down. And his dog seemed terribly afraid to approach Carmilla.

Laura is also a little taken aback by Carmilla’s tendency to be physically over-affectionate, showering her with kisses.

Odd things continue to happen. Carmilla disappears for a day but offers only a confused explanation. Laura suffers from an increasing weakness.

Then there’s the encounter with the neighbour, a retired general. He has a strange story to tell. Not long before Carmilla’s arrival it had been intended that the General’s beloved niece would pay an extended visit to the castle but the niece suddenly took ill and died. The General was convinced that her death did not come about by natural means and he now believes he has proof. His tale is of vampires, and the long-dead Countess Karnstein who may not be as dead as everyone supposes. The General is determined to wreak vengeance on the vampire.

This is only a novella so the plot really consists of two fairly brief episodes, the one involving Laura and the one involving the General’s niece which is told in an extended flashback. These two episodes will come together at the end.

This novella is interesting for many reasons. It added quite a lot of what would later become part of accepted vampire lore, but it differs from later vampire tales in some respects. These are vampires that feed on blood, they are governed by rules as to where they can sleep undisturbed (they must have the shroud in which they were buried), they may either have some shape-shifting ability or more likely an ability to appear to take on other forms. They seems able to pass through locked doors. On the other hand they are perfectly capable of being active during daylight hours and are more or less indistinguishable from normal living persons.

Is this really a lesbian vampire story? I would say, yes and no. These are vampires who appear, on occasion, to develop a strong bond with their victims. It’s a kind of erotic romantic bond but there is no indication in the text as to whether this bond usually develops exclusively between female vampires and female victims but it’s implied that this is not so. I think there’s no doubt that Le Fanu intends to suggest that vampirism can be linked to sexual attraction and I would guess that he was aware that Carmilla’s obsessions with her female victims were somewhat erotic in nature. I’m not sure that he actually intended to sit down and write a lesbian vampire story. The idea of vampirism as something linked eroticism was however already well established, and would be further elaborated a few years later in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Carmilla has been filmed several times, with Roger Vadim’s Blood and Roses (1960), Vicente Aranda’s The Blood Spattered Bride (1972) and Hammer’s The Vampire Lovers (1970) being notable examples. And Carmilla has been an indirect inspiration for countless vampire movies.