Carmilla

A beautiful stranger arrives at an isolated Styrian castle after a violent carriage accident. She calls herself Carmilla, refuses to reveal her past, and quickly forms an intense attachment to Laura, a lonely young woman who recognizes her from a childhood nightmare. Then the dreams begin. Young women in the surrounding district weaken and die. Locked doors fail to keep out the darkness. A forgotten portrait bears Carmilla's face, and the ruined village of Karnstein guards a grave that should have remained lost. As Laura's health declines, affection gives way to suspicion, and the truth draws her toward a horror buried for more than a century. This modernized and expanded edition presents Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's Gothic vampire novella in clear contemporary prose while preserving its nineteenth-century setting, central mystery, complex character relationships, and unforgettable conclusion. Three newly written chapters deepen the surrounding victims' stories, the locked-room disappearance, and the consequences that follow Carmilla's destruction.