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Carmilla

By Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
Penguin Classics
Series: Little Clothbound Classics
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Brief Description
The sapphic vampire story that inspired Dracula, in an irresistible Little Clothbound Classics edition designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith. Laura leads a secluded life in a castle buried deep in the Austrian forest, far away from the dangers of the outside world. That is until a horse... Read More
Format: Hardback
$3200
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Releases 12th January 2027 (Approx. Date) Pre-order  "Carmilla" now to secure your copy from our first shipment

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The sapphic vampire story that inspired Dracula, in an irresistible Little Clothbound Classics edition designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith.

Laura leads a secluded life in a castle buried deep in the Austrian forest, far away from the dangers of the outside world. That is until a horse and carriage crashes nearby one night, and she and her father take in a weary, young traveller - Carmilla. As mysterious as she is beguiling, Carmilla weaves her way into Laura's heart. Life proves less lonely with a friend. But sinister things start happening as the girls become closer, and the forest isn't the safe haven it once was.

Sheridan Le Fanu's nineteenth-century gothic tale was the first vampire novella. It paved the way for a literary tradition of female and lesbian vampires, and, before Dracula, explored the boundaries of sex and death. Still as chillingly alluring today as it was when it was written in 1871-2, Carmilla now joins Penguin's Little Clothbound Classics series.

Series: Little Clothbound Classics

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780241820230

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 24 September 2026

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Penguin Classics

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 15.0mm

Width: 117.0mm

Height: 168.0mm

Weight: 186g

Pages: 144

Collections

Classic Fiction Classic General Fiction Coming Soon in Fiction Fiction General Fiction Health & Wellness Historical Fiction Historical Romance Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu Literary Fiction Penguin Books Penguin Classics Penguin Classics: General Fiction Pre-order Books Pre-order General Fiction Pre-orders Pre-orders by Release Date Romance Self-Help & Personal Development Series: Little Clothbound Classics

About the Author

Sheridan Le Fanu was born and died in Dublin. He was one of the greatest exponents of the ghost story and the author of Uncle Silas and In a Glass Darkly.

Also by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

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  • Caramelle & Carmilla
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  • Mysterious and Horrific Stories
    Mysterious and Horrific Stories is a collection of Gothic tales by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Although he is more widely known today for his novella Carmilla (1872), which influenced Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) and remains an important work of early vampire fiction, Le Fanu was also an influential figure in mid-nineteenth century Irish literature as a writer and editor for...
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  • Carmilla
    Sheridan Le Fanu was born at No. 45 Lower Dominick Street, Dublin, into a literary family of Huguenot origins. Both his grandmother Alicia Sheridan Le Fanu and his great-uncle Richard Brinsley Sheridan were playwrights. His niece Rhoda Broughton would become a very successful novelist. Within a year of his birth, his family moved to the Royal Hibernian Military School in...
    By Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
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  • Carmilla
    Carmilla
    Carmilla (1872) is a novella by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Published twenty-six years before Bram Stoker's Dracula, Le Fanu's work of Gothic horror and mystery is considered an important early entry in the genre of vampire fiction. Recorded in the casebook of Dr. Hesselius, a medical professional with a detective's sensibility, is the story of Laura, a teenager bearing a...
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  • Carmilla
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    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...
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  • Carmilla
    Carmilla is an 1872 Gothic novella by Irish author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu and one of the early works of vampire fiction, predating Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) by 26 years. First published as a serial in The Dark Blue (1871-72), the story is narrated by a young woman preyed upon by a female vampire named Carmilla, later revealed to be...
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