Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu

Review by Shwetha H S

Title: Carmilla
Author: Sheridan Le Fanu
Imprint: Pushkin Press, UK
ISBN Number: 978-1-78227584-8
Genre: Classic, Fiction, Horror, Gothic, Vampires, Sapphic/Lesbian

Sheridan Le Fanu is an Irish writer, who lived in Dublin in the 1800s. He is touted to be Stephen King of his times. His work, Carmilla, is said to be the cult classic that inspired Bram Stoker to write his cult classic, Dracula.

Young Laura and her father live in a schloss (German for castle) in a place called Styria where families live very far from each other, but would like to visit each other. Laura doesn’t have any friends of her age, except her governesses who are of course older than her. She awaits visits from her far away neighbours hoping they would bring in their young nieces or friends with whom she could be friends. One such visit of an elderly neighbour with his niece gets cancelled at the last moment due to sudden death of the niece, for reasons unexplained to them by the neighbour. One night, in an accident outside their schloss, an injured girl of the age about that of Laura, is taken in after a lot of discussion with a lady who claims to be her mother. Joyed to have a friend at last, Laura spends a lot of time with her new friend, Carmilla, who is always tired, languid and tantrum-throwing. As Laura becomes closer to Carmilla, the more the former girl becomes weak. Unable to understand why Laura is weakening and getting nightmares, her father searches for answers. What answers does he get? What happened to the neighbour’s niece? Who is Carmilla? What happens to Laura? Read the book to get your answers.

If you have already read Dracula by Bram Stoker, you will find Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu a little pale. But, on the other hand, Carmilla is an easy read compared to Dracula. I personally don’t like epistolary novels. Dracula took me a very long time to finish reading. I struggled with it. Although Carmilla is in a similar form, it is a short read and hence tolerable. But, that is just me. Apart from this, I must acknowledge the fact that while writing one of the early fictions of vampirism, Sheridan Le Fanu also included homosexuality in it. Must have been too much to handle for the people of his era. However, it is very subtly handled in the narration. That might have avoided any furore. We don’t know what might have happened at that time. Sheridan Le Fanu is more dead than Carmilla now to answer our questions.

All in all, I neither recommend nor reject Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu. You are on your own with this.

Guest Post by Tamara Thorne & Alistair Cross

We love Gothics. Tamara teethed on Dark Shadows, rushing home every day to watch vampire Barnabas, witchy Angelique, and ghostly Quentin. Alistair devoured Rebecca and Turn of the Screw at a young age. The tales we both grew up loving are centered on an innocent young woman (be it governess, servant, or bride) caught up in the dark mysteries and romances of a spooky old mansion.

The Gothic has attracted readers for centuries and with good reason. Gothics generally include a naive heroine, a sprawling mystery-laden house with closed off rooms or wings, a handsome brooding master of the manor to warm the cheeks – and the panties – of the heroine, and several mysterious servants who may or may not be the heroine’s ally. And there is always someone who obviously has it out for the sweet young woman – generally the head housekeeper. What’s not to love?

In our younger years, both of us scoured libraries and used bookstores for Gothics written in the 1970s and 80s, strumming through anything with a cover featuring a spooky mansion or castle, and a windswept girl fleeing in the night. Both of us were after Gothics with a supernatural flair. The bigger the flair, the more we loved – and still love – it.

“Write what you love,” they say, and our novel, The Ghosts of Ravencrest, is pure Gothic. It follows governess Belinda Moorland as she settles into Ravencrest Manor’s routine. From the moment she arrives, the self-styled “house administrator,” Mrs. Heller, has it in for her, but the elegant butler, Grant Phister, is warm and friendly even though he is obviously keeping secrets of his own. On her very first night, a handsome ghost tries to seduce her. As the story moves along, Belinda encounters more and more mysteries and the reader even gets to visit Ravencrest in 1788 to find out why some of the ghosts in contemporary times are so tormented.

But The Ghosts of Ravencrest is modern. While it has plenty of romance, horror, and sex that sizzles, it still retains the feel of the old-time Gothic mysteries. So far, we’ve met witches, a trio of evil nuns, and a disfigured harlequin, as well as a slew of other spectres including the White Violet – a beautiful actress who went mad in the 1930s – and Amelia Manning, aka, The Bride of Ravencrest, who – after the death of her beloved husband – proclaimed herself the manor’s eternal companion.

We learn about the history of Ravencrest, how it served as a madhouse and hospice during in the Civil War era and housed an orphanage in the east wing around the time of the great witch hunts in the early years of the nineteenth century. Many were burned, but the real witch escaped to live on to torment the inhabitants of Ravencrest another day…

The Ghosts of Ravencrest is the first book in The Ravencrest Saga. We will begin releasing episodes of the second novel-in-progress, The Witches of Ravencrest, later this fall. You will meet more supernatural beings, not just ghosts and witches, but creatures of every ilk. Perhaps we’ll uncover what Old Peckerhead, the scarecrow, has up his tattered sleeve. Or what makes Riley, the groundskeeper, have such a voracious appetite. Or maybe we’ll delve into the story behind the gliding, gibbering nuns, Sisters Faith, Hope, and Charity. The sky’s the limit, but certainly, we will see more of Belinda’s special talents, and her budding romance with Eric Manning. And of course, some Ravencrest mysteries will be resolved even as new ones surface.  But that’s only the beginning. At Ravencrest, it’s wise to dig into the earth before something digs its way out and finds you first.