The Vampire Book
Carmilla is rightly considered one of the two most famous and popular vampire books - the other being Bram Stoker's Dracula (who was a major influence on Carmilla).
Laura is nineteen years old and lives with her father in a castle in Styria. Her father tries to replace her mother, who died very soon, and so Laura experiences a childhood and adolescence full of love and luxury. She longs for a relationship and lovemaking with a man, but this is not possible for an unmarried girl of her social status in the 19th century, so she fulfils her need for tenderness in the arms of her girlfriends. However, one of them, Berta, the niece and ward of her father's friend General Spielsdorf, dies suddenly under mysterious circumstances just as she is about to visit Laura. At that moment, under circumstances no less strange, the beautiful Carmilla appears, who seems to be a more than adequate substitute for her dead friend. Carmilla's mother asks Laura's father to take Carmilla in for a while until she returns from an urgent and dangerous trip. At Laura's insistence, her father agrees and Laura, completely enchanted by Carmilla's extraordinary beauty and her special charisma, enjoys making love and tender friendship with the mysterious visitor.
Less pleasant are the peculiarities of Carmilla's behaviour and especially her frequent emotional outbursts towards Laura, which embarrass her, although she does not resist touching her... Moreover, after some time she is haunted by symptoms of a strange illness and also by terrible dreams, all too similar to a nightmare from her early childhood. Laura no longer has the strength to resist Carmilla, who seems to be sucking all the life out of her. There are also many cases of people in the area who experience something similar, but unlike her, they soon die. In a moment, when it seems that a similar fate awaits the unfortunate Laura, General Spielsdorf appears on the scene, with the help of his mysterious friend Baron Vordenburg to exact revenge on the monster, that killed his niece Bertha.
His search for her leads him to the ruins of Karnstein Castle, where one autumn evening he meets not only Laura and her father, but also Carmilla.
How will their meeting turn out? Is Carmilla's resemblance to the long-dead Mircalla, Countess of Karnstein, and to Berta's friend Millarca purely coincidental? Can Laura escape the clutches of deadly love? And what must be done to lift the curse from the land of those who cannot rest in peace? The answer can be found in the denouement of the haunting novel by the Irish classic Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, translated and retold in a modern spirit by Josef "Pepson" Snětivý.
