Showing results by author "Sheridan LeFanu" in All Categories

Laura and her father live a quiet life in their remote castle in the dense forests Styria. It is a solitary existence for young Laura, who has no companionship except for her governess and the occasional visits of neighbouring gentry. Into this lonely life comes the mysterious house guest, Carmilla. Slowly Laura falls under Carmilla's spell. Whilst she is both attracted and repulsed by Carmilla, she seems unable to find the energy to resist her.

The death of a beloved sister initiates the career of the heiress of the Tyrone Estate. Pressured into an advantageous marriage, she finds herself residing in a spectral castle, her husband particularly forbidding her to explore the halls of the south wing.

Carmilla is a Gothic novella by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu first published in 1872. It tells the story of a young woman's susceptibility to the attentions of a female vampire named Carmilla. Carmilla predates Bram Stoker's Dracula by 25 years. Although Carmilla is a lesser known and far shorter Gothic vampire story than the generally-considered master work of that genre, Dracula, the latter is heavily influenced by Le Fanu's short story.

Mystery surrounds Maud Ruthyn in this quintessential gothic novel. Her melancholy father forbids her to ask or inquire anything concerning his misfortunate brother - Silas. From what she can gather, Silas was once a handsome, ambitious young man, but in his later years, he shrank into obscurity. Why? And why is Maud's governess, Madame de la Rougerre, so curious about her father's will? Why is she so cruel?

Joseph Sheridan LeFanu was one of the major figures of 19th centrury supernaturalism. He helped move supernaturalist fiction away from the Gothic's emphasis on external sources of terror and toward a focus on the effects of terror, thus helping to create the psychological basis for supernaturalist and horror lit that continues today.

Carmilla is a vampire novella by J. S. LeFanu published more than twenty years before Stoker's Dracula. In this chilling tale, a young English girl growing up in an isolated castle is preyed upon by a seductive female vampire.

Some of the greatest ghost stories of all time, here to send chills down your spine.

The story is presented by Le Fanu as part of the casebook of Dr Hesselius, whose departures from medical orthodoxy rank him as the first occult doctor in literature. The story is narrated by Laura, one of the two main protagonists of the tale. Laura begins her tale by relating her childhood in a "picturesque and solitary" castle in the midst of an extensive forest in Styria where she lives with her father, a wealthy English widower, retired from the Austrian Service.