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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, and has been adapted many times for cinema.

Illustration from The Dark Blue by D. H. Friston, 1872

Publication[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Carmilla

Carmilla was first published in the magazine The Dark Blue in 1872,^[1] and then in the author's collection of short stories, In a Glass Darkly the same year.

There were two illustrators for the story, both of which appeared in the magazine but which do not appear in modern printings of the book. The two illustrators, David Henry Friston and Michael Fitzgerald, show some inconsistencies in their depiction of the characters, and as such some confusion has arisen in identifying the pictures as part of a continuous plot.

Plot summary[link]

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.^[2] 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. When she is six years old, Laura has a vision of a beautiful visitor in her bedchamber. She later claims to have been bitten on the chest, although no wounds are found on her.

12 years later, Laura and her father are admiring the sunset in front of the castle when her father tells her of a letter he received earlier from his friend General Spielsdorf. The General was supposed to bring his niece, Bertha Rheinfeldt, to visit the two, but the niece suddenly died under mysterious circumstances. The General ambiguously concludes that he will discuss the circumstances in detail when they meet later.

Laura is saddened by the loss of a potential friend, and longs for a companion. A carriage accident outside Laura's home unexpectedly brings a girl of Laura's age into the family's care. Her name is Carmilla. Both girls instantly recognize the other from the 'dream' they both had when they were young.

Carmilla appears injured after her carriage accident, but her mysterious mother informs Laura's father that her journey is urgent and cannot be delayed. She arranges to leave her daughter with Laura and her father until she can return in three months. Before she leaves she sternly notes that her daughter will not disclose any information whatsoever about her family, past, or herself and that Carmilla is of sound mind. Laura comments that this information seems needless to say, and her father laughs it off.

Carmilla and Laura grow to be very close friends, but occasionally Carmilla's mood abruptly changes. She sometimes makes unsettling romantic advances towards Laura. Carmilla refuses to tell anything about herself or her background, despite questioning from Laura. Her secrecy isn't the only mysterious thing about her. Carmilla sleeps much of the day, and seems to sleepwalk at night. When a funeral procession passes by the two girls and Laura begins singing a hymn, Carmilla bursts out in rage and scolds Laura for singing a Christian song. When a shipment of family heirloom restored portraits arrives at the castle, Laura finds one of her ancestors, "Mircalla, Countess Karnstein", dated 1698. The portrait resembles Carmilla exactly, down to the mole on her neck.

During Carmilla's stay, Laura has nightmares of a fiendish cat-like beast entering her room at night and biting her on the chest. The beast then takes the form of a female figure and disappears through the door without opening it. Laura's health declines and her father has a doctor examine her. He speaks privately with her father and only asks that Laura never be left unattended.

Her father then sets out with Laura in a carriage for the ruined village of Karnstein. They leave a message behind asking Carmilla and one of the governesses entreated to follow after once the perpetually late-sleeping Carmilla wakes up. En route to Karnstein, Laura and her father encounter General Spielsdorf. He tells them his own ghastly story.

Spielsdorf and his niece had met a young woman named Millarca and her enigmatic mother at a costume ball. The General's niece was immediately taken with Millarca. The mother convinced the General that she was an old friend of his and asked that Millarca be allowed to stay with them for three weeks while she attended to a secret matter of great importance.

Funeral, illustration by Michael Fitzgerald for Carmilla in The Dark Blue, January 1872

The General's niece fell mysteriously ill and suffered exactly the same symptoms as Laura. After consulting with a priestly doctor who he had specially ordered, the General came to the realization that his niece was being visited by a vampire. He hid in a closet with a sword and waited until seeing a fiendish cat-like creature stalk around his niece's bedroom and bite her on the neck. He then leapt from his hiding place and attacked the beast, which took the form of Millarca. She fled through the locked door, unharmed. The General's niece died immediately afterward.

When they arrive at Karnstein the General asks a nearby woodsman where he can find the tomb of Mircalla Karnstein. The woodsman relates that the tomb was relocated long ago, by the hero who vanquished the vampires that haunted the region.

While the General and Laura are left alone in the ruined chapel, Carmilla appears. The General and Carmilla both fly into a rage upon seeing each other and the General attacks her with an axe. Carmilla flees and the General explains to Laura that Carmilla is also Millarca, both anagrams for the original name of the vampire Countess Mircalla Karnstein.

The party is then joined by Baron Vordenburg, the descendant of the hero who rid the area of vampires long ago. Vordenburg is an authority on vampires and has discovered that his ancestor was romantically involved with the Countess Karnstein, before she died and became one of the undead. Using his forefather's notes he locates the hidden tomb of Carmilla. An Imperial Commission is then summoned who exhume and destroy the body of the vampire on behalf of the ruling Habsburg Monarchy, within whose domains Styria is situated.

Afterwards, Laura's father takes her on a year-long vacation to recover from the trauma and regain her health.

Sources[link]

As with Dracula, critics have looked for the sources used in the writing of the text. Matthew Gibson has shown that LeFanu used Dom Augustin Calmet's Treatise on Vampires and Revenants, translated into English in 1850 as The Phantom World, the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould's The Book of Were-wolves (1863), and his account of Elizabeth Bathory, Coleridge's Christabel, and Captain Basil Hall's Schloss Hainfeld; or a Winter in Lower Styria (London and Edinburgh, 1836). Hall's account provides much of the Styrian background and in particular a model for both Carmilla and Laura in the figure of Jane Anne Cranstoun, Countess Purgstall.^[3][4]

Influence[link]

Carmilla, the title character, is the original prototype for a legion of female and lesbian vampires. Though Le Fanu portrays his vampire's sexuality with the circumspection that one would expect for his time, it is evident that lesbian attraction is the main dynamic between Carmilla and the narrator of the story:

Sometimes after an hour of apathy, my strange and beautiful companion would take my hand and hold it with a fond pressure, renewed again and again; blushing softly, gazing in my face with languid and burning eyes, and breathing so fast that her dress rose and fell with the tumultuous respiration. It was like the ardour of a lover; it embarrassed me; it was hateful and yet overpowering; and with gloating eyes she drew me to her, and her hot lips travelled along my cheek in kisses; and she would whisper, almost in sobs, "You are mine, you shall be mine, and you and I are one for ever". ("Carmilla", Chapter 4).

Carmilla selected exclusively female victims, though only became emotionally involved with a few. Carmilla had nocturnal habits, but was not confined to the darkness. She had unearthly beauty and was able to change her form and to pass through solid walls. Her animal alter ego was a monstrous black cat, not a large dog as in Dracula. She did, however, sleep in a coffin.

Some critics, among them William Veeder, suggest that Carmilla, notably in its outlandish use of narrative frames, was an important influence on Henry James' The Turn of the Screw.

[edit] Bram Stoker's Dracula

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.

In the earliest manuscript of Dracula, dated 8 March 1890, the castle is set in Styria, although the setting was changed to Transylvania six days later. Stoker's posthumously published short story "Dracula's Guest", known as the deleted first chapter to Dracula, shows a more obvious and intact debt to "Carmilla": Both stories are told in the first person. Dracula expands on the idea of a first person account by creating a series of journal entries and logs of different persons and creating a plausible background story for them having been compiled. Stoker also indulges the air of mystery further than Le Fanu by allowing the characters to solve the enigma of the vampire along with the reader.

The descriptions of Carmilla and the character of Lucy in Dracula are similar, and have become archetypes for the appearance of the waif-like victims and seducers in vampire stories as being tall, slender, languid, and with large eyes, full lips and soft voices. Both women also sleepwalk.

Stoker's Dr. Abraham Van Helsing is a direct parallel to Le Fanu's vampire expert Baron Vordenburg: both characters used to investigate and catalyse actions in opposition to the vampire, and symbolically represent knowledge of the unknown and stability of mind in the onslaught of chaos and death.^[5]

In popular culture[link]

Films[link]

• Danish director Carl Dreyer loosely adapted Carmilla for his 1932 film Vampyr but deleted any references to lesbian sexuality.^[6] The credits of the original film say that the film is based on In A Glass Darkly. This collection contains five tales, one of which is "Carmilla". Actually the film draws its central character, Allan Gray, from Le Fanu's Dr. Hesselius; and the scene in which Gray is buried alive is drawn from "The Room in the Dragon Volant".
• French director Roger Vadim's Et mourir de plaisir (literally And to die of pleasure, but actually shown in England as Blood and Roses, 1960) is based on Carmilla and is considered one of the greatest of the vampire genre. The Vadim film thoroughly explores the lesbian implications behind Carmilla's selection of victims, and boasts cinematography by Claude Renoir. The film's lesbian eroticism was however significantly cut for its US release.
• A more-or-less faithful adaptation starring Christopher Lee was produced in Italy in 1964 under the title La cripta e l'incubo (Crypt of the Vampire in English).
• The British Hammer Film Productions also produced a fairly faithful adaptation of "Carmilla" titled The Vampire Lovers (1970) with Ingrid Pitt in the lead role and Madeline Smith as her victim/lover. It is the first installment of the Karnstein Trilogy.
• The Blood Spattered Bride (La Novia Ensangrentada) is a 1972 Spanish horror film written and directed by Vicente Aranda, is based on the text. The film has reached cult status for its mix of horror, vampirism and seduction with lesbian overtones.
• In 1990, Gabrielle Beaumont created a film adaptation for a horror anthology television series Nightmare Classics titled "Carmilla", which is one of the more faithful adaptations of the story, though the setting was transported to post-Civil War Deep South of the United States. It starred Meg Tilly as Carmilla and Ione Skye as a lonely Southern girl whom Carmilla seduces.
• Carmilla is featured as the main antagonist in the 2009 movie Lesbian Vampire Killers, a comedy starring Paul McGann and James Corden.
• The novel is mentioned and referenced by some of the other characters in the 2011 movie The Moth Diaries; Carmilla also seems to have inspired the main antagonist Ernessa, played by Lily Cole.
• According to director Dennis Gansel his film Wir Sind Die Nacht is his personal take on Carmilla. During a character's vampire transformation she watches a documentary about lions, hinting towards a scene in the novella.

Radio[link]

• The character of Dr. Hesselius is featured in a Mutual Broadcasting Network radio drama entitled "The Shadow People", an episode from The Hall of Fantasy series (1946–1947, 1949–1952, 1952, 1953). The episode casts Dr. Hesselius as an occult sleuth and aired on September 5, 1952.
• On November 20, 1981, the CBC Radio series Nightfall aired an adaptation of Carmilla written by Graham Pomeroy and John Douglas.

Music[link]

• Cradle of Filth, a popular British extreme metal band, has produced an album called Dusk... and Her Embrace inspired by "Carmilla", and have also recorded an instrumental track titled "Carmilla's Masque". The lyric: "Portrait of the Dead Countess" in the track "A Gothic Romance" could be in reference to the portrait found in the novel of the Countess Mircalla. There is also a track on the accompanying EP Vempire or Dark Faerytales in Phallustein titled "Queen Of Winter Throned" which contains the lyrics: "Iniquitous/I share Carmilla's mask/A gaunt mephitic voyeur/On the black side of the glass". Lead singer Dani Filth has often cited Sheridan Le Fanu as an inspiration to his lyrics.
• Theatres des Vampires, an Italian extreme gothic metal band has produced a video single called "Carmilla" for its album Moonlight Waltz
• Prior to her first record deal, British singer-songwriter Kate Bush recorded at least thirty officially-unreleased but much-bootlegged demos of original material, circa 1972. One of these, "Surrender into the Roses" (also known as "Carmilla" and "Coming Up") was inspired by the tale.
• Two Witches, a Finnish Gothic rock band, created a song in the early 1990s called "Mircalla", inspired by the novel.
• A chamber opera version of Carmilla appeared in 1970 (Carmilla: A Vampire Tale, music by Ben Johnston, script by Wilford Leach). Seated on a sofa, Laura and Carmilla recount the story retrospectively in song.
• Carmilla, a musical theater adaptation by Allan Jaffe and Deborah Atherton circa 1995.
• The 1980s band LaHost's track on the 1985 EMI compilation album 'Fire in Harmony' was 'Blood and Roses' - the lyrics of which are loosely based on the Roger Corman film version of Carmilla.
• The songs "A Very Strange Agony" and "To Die Only Once" of the Spanish symphonic metal band Döxa were inspired by "Carmilla".
• Briton Rites first album, For Mircalla was inspired by the short story.

Books[link]

• The novel Carmilla: The Return, written in 1999 by Kyle Marffin, begins in 19th century Austria but follows Carmilla's life into 1990s Michigan.
• A vampire named Baron Karnstein appears in Anno Dracula by Kim Newman. Carmilla herself is mentioned several times as a former (until her death at the hands of vampire hunters) friend of the book's vampire heroine Geneviève. Some short stories set in the Anno Dracula universe have also included Carmilla.
• The story of Carmilla is illustrated using old antique etchings by Tiffini Elektra X in the book In This House: A Collection of Altered Art Imagery and Collage Techniques.
• The story "Carmilla" was included in Pam Keesey's collection of lesbian vampire stories, Daughters of Darkness (1993).

Comics[link]

• In 1991, Aircel Comics published a six-issue black and white miniseries of Carmilla by Steven Jones and John Ross. It was based on the story by Sheridan Le Fanu and billed as "The Erotic Horror Classic of Female Vampirism". The first issue was printed in February 1991. The first three issues were an adaptation of the original story, while the latter three were a sequel set in the 1930s.^[7][8]
• Carmilla. Nuestra Señora de los Vampiros is a black and white one-shot published in 1999 by Spanish comic publisher Dude Comics based on the story by Sheridan Le Fanu, but with a modern twist. In present day, Carmilla saves a girl named Laura from being raped and later gives her Le Fanu's book to read to explain her past. Laura finally becomes Carmilla's companion. Based on a script by Roy Thomas, the comic had two artists with radically different graphic styles: Rafa Fonteriz draw the present day part, while Isaac M. del Rivero draw the part based on Le Fanu's book.
• Graphic Classics, vol. 14: Gothic Classics (2007) contains an adaptation of Carmilla, illustrated by Lisa K. Weber and adapted by Rod Lott.^[9]
• The webcomic Romanian Gothique features a vampire countess named "Camilla",^[10] who is also a lesbian.
• Carmilla (a lesbian vampire) is the leading character of most of the Italian comics by Francesca Paolucci (published in Italy by EF Edizioni).
• In the first story arc of Dynamite Entertainment's revamp of Vampirella, a villainous vampire named Le Fanu inhabits the basement of a Seattle nightclub named Carmilla.
• The German erotic/vampire/comedy comic series Sandra Bodyshelly (2002-2004) by Harm Bengen^[11] incorporates several plot elements from vampiric fiction. Included from Camilla are Sandra's (the titular character) ability to turn into a cat, and the nature of her first encounter (and the resulting sexual relationship) with the series' second main protagonist, Isabelle von Karatstein.

Anime[link]

• In the anime Hellsing, a succubus who claims to be the sister of Integra Hellsing makes an appearance. She goes by the name of Laura, and Integra asks her if she is the vampire Carmilla. When Alucard confronts her, she takes on a catlike appearance before she attacks him. In the end, Alucard kills her with only one bullet, in a matter of one second.

• In Glass Mask (episode 29 of the anime and volume 17 of the manga), Ayumi Himekawa played Carmilla in a stage adaptation of the novella.

Video games[link]

• In the video game Lunar Knights, a character named Sheridan has a maid named Carmilla. The banker in the game is also named Laura.
• In six of the Castlevania games; Circle of the Moon, Rondo of Blood, its PSP remake Dracula X Chronicles, Simon's Quest, Judgment, and Lords of Shadow; there is a female vampire named Camilla.

References in other media[link]

• The Doctor Who serial State of Decay features a vampire named Camilla who in a brief but explicit moment finds much to 'admire' in the Doctor's female travelling companion Romana who finds she has to turn away from the vampire's intense gaze.
• There is a Japanese lesbians' magazine named after Carmilla, as Carmilla "draws hetero women into the world of love between women".^[12]
• In HBO TV series True Blood, Season 2- Episodes 5 and 6, a hotel in Dallas Texas has been built for Vampires called "Hotel Carmilla." They have heavy shaded rooms and provide room service of human "snacks" (with blood type and sexuality) for their vampire clientele.

See also[link]

Novels portal

• Homosexuality in speculative fiction

References[link]

Other sources[link]

• Marffin, Kyle (1998). Carmilla: The Return. Design Image Group. ISBN 1-891946-02-1
• Repossessing the body: transgressive desire in "Carmilla" and Dracula - vampire story retold with masculine themes added

External links[link]

• Carmilla at Project Gutenberg
• http://librivox.org/carmilla-by-sheridan-lefanu/

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (January 2012)

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Meg Tilly (born February 14, 1960) is a Canadian-American actress, Broadway stage dancer, Academy Award nominee, and published novelist. She is the younger sister of actress and poker player Jennifer Tilly.

Early life[link]

Tilly, the third of four children, was born Margaret Elizabeth Chan in Long Beach, California,^[1] the daughter of Patricia (née Tilly), a Canadian schoolteacher, and businessman Harry Chan.^[2][3]

Tilly's father was Chinese American, and her mother was of Irish, Finnish, and First Nations descent.^[4] Following her parents' divorce when she was three, she was raised by her mother and stepfather, John Ward, on rural Texada Island in British Columbia. She graduated from Esquimalt High School in Victoria, British Columbia. She has a brother, Steve, and two sisters, Rebecca and Jennifer.

Acting career[link]

As a teen, she was involved with the Connecticut Ballet Company, as well as the Throne Dance Theatre, and made her screen debut with Alan Parker's Fame in 1980. When a dance partner dropped her, causing a serious back injury, her dance career came to a shattering halt.

She then became an actress. She played a prostitute in a second season episode of Hill Street Blues before she appeared in films such as The Big Chill and Psycho II before her acclaimed title role in Agnes of God, for which she received an Oscar nomination and won a Golden Globe. Tilly later appeared in Valmont, The Two Jakes with Jack Nicholson and Leaving Normal, as well as the 1993 horror film, Body Snatchers.

Tilly was the first choice for the role of Constanze Mozart in Milos Forman's film Amadeus, having received glowing appraisals of her rehearsal work by both her would-be costar Tom Hulce and director Forman. However, she sustained a leg injury playing soccer and had to abandon the project. The role later went to Elizabeth Berridge. Tilly portrayed the Blessed Mother, a Pope-like figure in the Caprica episode "Unvanquished".

Tilly returned to acting in 2011 playing Martha in Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,^[5] presented by the Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre in Victoria, B.C.^[6]

In January 2012, Global Television in Canada launched the six-part Bomb Girls, about women who work in a munitions factory during World War II.^[7] Tilly stars as Lorna, the emotionally closed floor matron who blossoms as a leader and an appealing woman.^[8]

Writing career[link]

Tilly wrote a novel, Singing Songs, comprising a series of vignettes about a young girl whose stepfather molests her and her sisters.^{[citation needed]} A second novel, Gemma, came out in October 2006. Her third novel, Porcupine, is a finalist for the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize. She wrote a novel, First Time, published in 2008.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life[link]

She has three children: Emily (born 1984) and David (born 1986), by her marriage to film producer Tim Zinnemann, which ended in 1989, and a son, Will (born 1990), from her five-year relationship with British actor Colin Firth. Her second husband, John Calley, was 30 years her senior. He is a former president of Sony Pictures; they were married in 1995 and divorced in 2002.^[9] She is now married to author Don Calame.^[10]

Awards and nominations[link]

Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films, USA

• 1984, Best Actress for Psycho II, (Nomination)

Academy Awards

• 1986, Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Agnes of God, (Nomination)

Golden Globe Awards

• 1986, Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Movie for Agnes of God, (won)

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Meg Tilly at the Internet Movie Database

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	Irish
Genres	Gothic horror, mystery
Literary movement	Dark Romanticism
Influences Walter Scott, Ann Radcliffe, Samuel Warren, Emanuel Swedenborg, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Influenced James Joyce, Charles Dickens, Bram Stoker, Henry James, Charlotte Brontë

Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu (28 August 1814 – 7 February 1873) was an Irish writer of Gothic tales and mystery novels. He was the leading ghost-story writer of the nineteenth century and was central to the development of the genre in the Victorian era. Three of his best known works are Uncle Silas, Carmilla and The House by the Churchyard.

Biography[link]

Sheridan Le Fanu was born at 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 successful novelist). Within a year of his birth his family moved to the Royal Hibernian Military School in the Phoenix Park, where his father, a Church of Ireland clergyman, was appointed to the chaplaincy of the establishment. The Phoenix Park and the adjacent village and parish church of Chapelizod would appear in Le Fanu's later stories.^[1]

In 1826 the family moved to Abington, County Limerick, where Le Fanu's father Thomas took up his second rectorship in southern Ireland. Although he had a tutor, Le Fanu also used his father's library to educate himself. His father was a stern Protestant churchman and raised his family in an almost Calvinist tradition.^[1]

In 1832 the disorders of the Tithe War (1831–1836) affected the region. There were about six thousand Catholics in the parish of Abington, and only a few dozen members of the Church of Ireland. (In bad weather the Dean cancelled Sunday services because so few parishioners would attend.) However, the government compelled all farmers, including Catholics, to pay tithes for the upkeep of the Protestant church. The following year the family moved back temporarily to Dublin, to Williamstown Avenue in a southern suburb, where Thomas was to work on a Government commission.^[1]

Although Thomas Le Fanu tried to live as though he were well-off, the family was in constant financial difficulty. Thomas took the rectorships in the south of Ireland for the money, as they provided a decent living through tithes. However, from 1830, as the result of agitation against the tithes, this income began to fall and it ceased entirely two years later. In 1838 the government instituted a scheme of paying rectors a fixed sum, but in the interim the Dean had little besides rent on some small properties he had inherited. In 1833 Thomas had to borrow £100 from his cousin Captain Dobbins (who himself ended up in the debtors' prison a few years later) to visit his dying sister in Bath, who was also deeply in debt over her medical bills. At his death Thomas had almost nothing to leave to his sons and the family had to sell his library to pay off some of his debts. His widow went to stay with the younger son William.^[1]

Sheridan Le Fanu studied law at Trinity College in Dublin, where he was elected Auditor of the College Historical Society. Under a system peculiar to Ireland he did not have to live in Dublin to attend lectures, but could study at home and take examinations at the university when necessary. He was called to the bar in 1839, but he never practiced and soon abandoned law for journalism. In 1838 he began contributing stories to the Dublin University Magazine, including his first ghost story, entitled "The Ghost and the Bone-Setter" (1838). He became owner of several newspapers from 1840, including the Dublin Evening Mail and the Warder.^[1]

On 18 December 1844 Le Fanu married Susanna Bennett, the daughter of a leading Dublin barrister. Isaac Butt was a witness. The couple then travelled to his parents' home in Abington for Christmas. They took a house in Warrington Place near the Grand Canal in Dublin. Their first child, Eleanor, was born in 1845, followed by Emma in 1846, Thomas in 1847 and George in 1854.

In 1847 Le Fanu supported John Mitchel and Thomas Francis Meagher in their campaign against the indifference of the government to the Irish Famine. Others involved in the campaign included Samuel Ferguson and Isaac Butt. Butt wrote a forty-page analysis of the national disaster for the Dublin University Magazine in 1847.^[2] His support cost him the nomination as Tory MP for County Carlow in 1852.

In 1856 the family moved from Warrington Place to the house of Susanna's parents at 18 Merrion Square (later number 70, the office of the Irish Arts Council). Her parents retired to live in England. Joseph Le Fanu never owned the house, but rented it from his brother-in-law for £22 per annum (which he still failed to pay in full).

His personal life also became difficult at this time, as his wife suffered from increasing neurotic symptoms. She had a crisis of faith and tended to attend religious services at the nearby St. Stephen's Church and discuss religion with William, Joseph's younger brother, as Joseph had apparently stopped attending religious services. She suffered from anxiety after the deaths of several close relatives, including her father two years before, which may have led to marital problems.^[3]

In April 1858 she suffered an "hysterical attack" and died the following day in unclear circumstances. She was buried in the Bennett family vault in Mount Jerome Cemetery beside her father and brothers. The anguish of Le Fanu's diaries suggests that he felt guilt as well as loss. From then on he did not write any fiction until the death of his mother in 1861. He turned to his cousin Lady Gifford for advice and encouragement, and she remained a close correspondent until her death at the end of the decade.

In 1861 he became the editor and proprietor of the Dublin University Magazine and he began to take advantage of double publication, first serializing in the Dublin University Magazine, then revising for the English market. He published both The House by the Churchyard and Wylder's Hand in this way. After lukewarm reviews of the former novel, set in the Phoenix Park area of Dublin, Le Fanu signed a contract with Richard Bentley, his London publisher, which specified that future novels be stories "of an English subject and of modern times", a step Bentley thought necessary for Le Fanu to satisfy the English audience. Le Fanu succeeded in this aim in 1864, with the publication of Uncle Silas, which he set in Derbyshire. In his very last short stories, however, Le Fanu returned to Irish folklore as an inspiration and encouraged his friend Patrick Kennedy to contribute folklore to the D.U.M.

Le Fanu died in his native Dublin on 7 February 1873, at the age of 58. Today there is a road and Park in Ballyfermot, near his childhood home in south-west Dublin, named after him.

Work[link]

Le Fanu worked in many genres but remains best known for his mystery and horror fiction. He was a meticulous craftsman and frequently reworked plots and ideas from his earlier writing in subsequent pieces. Many of his novels, for example, are expansions and refinements of earlier short stories. He specialised in tone and effect rather than "shock horror", and liked to leave important details unexplained and mysterious. He avoided overt supernatural effects: in most of his major works, the supernatural is strongly implied but a "natural" explanation is also possible. The demonic monkey in "Green Tea" could be a delusion of the story's protagonist, who is the only person to see it; in "The Familiar", Captain Barton's death seems to be supernatural, but is not actually witnessed, and the ghostly owl may be a real bird. This technique influenced later horror artists, both in print and on film (see, for example, the film producer Val Lewton's principle of "indirect horror"). Though other writers have since chosen less subtle techniques, Le Fanu's best tales, such as the vampire novella "Carmilla", remain some of the most powerful in the genre. He had enormous influence on the 20th century's most important ghost story writer, M. R. James, and although his work fell out of favour in the early part of the 20th century, towards the end of the century interest in his work increased and remains comparatively strong.^[1]

[edit] The Purcell Papers

His earliest twelve short stories, written between 1838 and 1840, purport to be the literary remains of an 18th-century Catholic priest called Father Purcell. They were published in the Dublin University Magazine and were later collected as The Purcell Papers (1880). They are mostly set in Ireland and include some classic stories of gothic horror, with gloomy castles, supernatural visitations from beyond the grave, madness and suicide. Also apparent are nostalgia and sadness for the dispossessed Catholic aristocracy of Ireland, whose ruined castles stand as mute witness to this history. Some of the stories still often in anthologies:

• "The Ghost and the Bonesetter" (1838), his first-published and jocular story.
• "The Fortunes of Sir Robert Ardagh" (1838), an enigmatic story involving a Faustian pact and set in the gothic ambiance of a castle in rural Ireland.
• "The Last Heir of Castle Connor" (1838), a non-supernatural tale, exploring the decline and expropriation of the ancient Catholic gentry of Ireland under the Protestant Ascendancy.
• "The Drunkard's Dream" (1838), of Hell.
• "Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter" (1839), a disturbing story of a man returning from the grave to claim his bride in the old folkloric motif of the demon lover. This tale was inspired by the atmospheric candlelit scenes of the 17th-century Dutch painter Godfried Schalcken, who is the hero of the story. It was adapted and broadcast for television by the BBC for Christmas 1979.[1].
• "Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess" (1839), an early version of his later novel Uncle Silas.
• "A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family" (1839), which may have influenced Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. This story was later reworked and expanded by Le Fanu as The Wyvern Mystery (1869).

Revised versions of "Irish Countess" and "Schalken" were reprinted in Le Fanu's first collection of short stories, the very rare Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery (1851).

[edit] Spalatro

An anonymous novella Spalatro: from the notes of Fra Giacomo, published in the Dublin University Magazine in 1843, was added to the Le Fanu canon as late as 1980, being recognised as Le Fanu's work by W.J. McCormack in his biography of that year. Spalatro has a typically Gothic Italian setting, featuring a bandit as hero, à la Ann Radcliffe (whose 1797 novel The Italian includes a repentant minor villain of the same name). More disturbing, however, is the hero Spalatro's necrophiliac passion for an undead blood-drinking beauty, who seems to be a predecessor of Le Fanu's later female vampire Carmilla. Like Carmilla this undead femme fatale is not portrayed in an entirely negative way and attempts, but fails, to save the hero Spalatro from the eternal damnation that seems to be his destiny.

Le Fanu wrote this story after the death of his elder sister Catherine in March 1841. She had been ailing for about ten years, but her death came as a great shock to him.^[4]

Historical fiction[link]

Le Fanu's first novels were historical, à la Sir Walter Scott, though with an Irish setting. Like Scott, Le Fanu was sympathetic to the old Jacobite cause:

• The Cock and Anchor (1845), a story of old Dublin. It was reissued with slight alterations as Morley Court in 1873.
• The Fortunes of Colonel Torlogh O'Brien (1847).
• The House by the Churchyard (1863), the last of Le Fanu's novels to be set in the past and, as mentioned above, the last with an Irish setting. It is noteworthy that here Le Fanu's historical style is blended with his later Gothic style, influenced by his reading of the classic writers of that genre, such as Ann Radcliffe. This novel was later an important influence on Joyce's Finnegans Wake and is set in Chapelizod, where Le Fanu lived in his youth.

Sensation novels[link]

Le Fanu published many novels in the contemporary sensation fiction style of Wilkie Collins and others:

• Wylder's Hand (1864).
• Guy Deverell (1865).
• All in the Dark (1866), satirising Spiritualism.
• The Tenants of Malory (1867).
• A Lost Name (1868).
• Haunted Lives (1868).
• The Wyvern Mystery (1869).
• Checkmate (1871).
• The Rose and the Key (1871), which describes the horrors of the private lunatic asylum, a classic gothic theme.
• Willing to Die (1872).

Major works[link]

His best-known works, still widely read today, are:

The seductive vampire Carmilla attacks the sleeping Bertha Rheinfeldt.

• Uncle Silas (1864), a macabre mystery novel and classic of gothic horror. It is a much extended adaptation of his earlier short story "Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess", with the setting changed from Ireland to England. A film version under the same name was made by Gainsborough Studios in 1947, and a remake entitled The Dark Angel, starring Peter O'Toole as the title character, was made in 1987.
• In a Glass Darkly (1872), a collection of five short stories in the horror and mystery genres, presented as the posthumous papers of the occult detective Dr Hesselius:

• "Green Tea"
• "The Familiar"
• "Mr Justice Harbottle" (perhaps better known in its earlier, very different version, "An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street")
• "The Room in the Dragon Volant", not a ghost story but a notable mystery story that includes the theme of premature burial
• "Carmilla", a compelling tale of a lesbian vampire, set in central Europe. This story was to greatly influence Bram Stoker in the writing of Dracula. It also inspired several films, including Hammer's The Vampire Lovers (1970), Roger Vadim's Blood and Roses (1960), Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr (1932) and Harry Kümel's Daughters of Darkness in 1971.

Other short-story collections[link]

• Chronicles of Golden Friars (1871), a collection of short stories set in the imaginary English village of Golden Friars, including:

• "A Strange Adventure in the Life of Miss Laura Mildmay", incorporating the story "Madam Crowl's Ghost".
• "The Haunted Baronet", a novella.
• "The Bird of Passage".

• The Watcher and Other Weird Stories (1894), another collection of short stories, published posthumously.
• Madam Crowl's Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery (1923), uncollected short stories gathered from their original magazine publications and edited by M. R. James:

• "Madam Crowl's Ghost", from All the Year Round, December 1870.
• "Squire Toby's Will", from Temple Bar, January 1868.
• "Dickon the Devil", from London Society, Christmas Number, 1872.
• "The Child That Went with the Fairies", from All the Year Round, February 1870.
• "The White Cat of Drumgunniol", from All the Year Round, April 1870.
• "An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street", from the Dublin University Magazine, January 1851.
• "Ghost Stories of Chapelizod", from the Dublin University Magazine, January 1851.
• "Wicked Captain Walshawe, of Wauling", from the Dublin University Magazine, April 1864.
• "Sir Dominick's Bargain", from All the Year Round, July 1872.
• "Ultor de Lacy", from the Dublin University Magazine, December 1861.
• "The Vision of Tom Chuff", from All the Year Round, October 1870.
• "Stories of Lough Guir", from All the Year Round, April 1870.

The publication of this book, which has often been reprinted, led to the revival in interest in Le Fanu, which has continued to this day.

Further reading[link]

There is an extensive critical analysis of Le Fanu's supernatural stories (particularly "Green Tea", "Schalken the Painter" and "Carmilla") in Jack Sullivan's book Elegant Nightmares: The English Ghost Story From Le Fanu to Blackwood (1978). Other books on Le Fanu include Wilkie Collins, Le Fanu and Others (1931) by S. M. Ellis, Sheridan Le Fanu (1951) by Nelson Browne, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1971) by Michael H. Begnal, Sheridan Le Fanu (third edition, 1997) by W. J. McCormack, Le Fanu's Gothic: The Rhetoric of Darkness (2004) by Victor Sage and Vision and Vacancy: The Fictions of J. S. Le Fanu (2007) by James Walton. Le Fanu, his works, and his family background are explored in Gavin Selerie's mixed prose/verse text Le Fanu's Ghost (2006). Gary William Crawford's J. Sheridan Le Fanu: A Bio-Bibliography (1995) is the first full bibliography. Crawford and Brian J. Showers's Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: A Concise Bibliography (2011) is a supplement to Crawford's out-of-print 1995 bibliography. With Jim Rockhill and Brian J. Showers, Crawford has edited Reflections in a Glass Darkly: Essays on J. Sheridan Le Fanu. Jim Rockhill's introductions to the three volumes of the Ash-Tree Press edition of Le Fanu's short supernatural fiction (Schalken the Painter and Others [2002], The Haunted Baronet and Others [2003], Mr Justice Harbottle and Others [2005]) provide a perceptive account of Le Fanu's life and work.

References to Sheridan Le Fanu in fiction[link]

In Dorothy L. Sayers's novel Gaudy Night, set in 1935, the main character Harriet Vane, a crime fiction writer, covers her investigation on a mystery case at her fictional Oxford college, Shrewsbury, with research on Sheridan Le Fanu. In Thrones, Dominations, the last, unfinished novel by Sayers, completed by Jill Paton Walsh, the Author's Note states that Harriet Vane published a monograph on Sheridan Le Fanu in 1946, drawing on this research. However, Sayers' first reference to Le Fanu appears in an earlier Lord Peter Wimsey novel, The Nine Tailors (1934), where he is quoted directly (from Wylder's Hand, in the opening to the seventh "part" of Chapter II and again in the opening to the second "part" of Chapter III) and a mysterious letter is referred to (first by Wimsey's valet, Mervyn Bunter) as "written by a person of no inconsiderable literary ability, who had studied the works of Sheridan Lefanu [sic] and was, if I may be permitted the expression, bats in the belfry, my lord."

See also[link]

• List of horror fiction authors

Notes[link]

References[link]

• McCormack, W. J. (1997). Sheridan Le Fanu. Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-7509-1489-0. 

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Sheridan Le Fanu

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Sheridan Le Fanu

• Works of Le Fanu at eBooks @ Adelaide
• E-texts of many Le Fanu stories and information on his life
• Sheridan Le Fanu database
• Sheridan Le Fanu at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Works by Sheridan Le Fanu at Project Gutenberg
• A talk by M. R. James on LeFanu
• Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies
• Article by Brian Showers on the location of the Le Fanu burial plot
• Free mp3 download of "Uncle Silas" at LibriVox.org
• Free mp3 download of "Carmilla" at LibriVox.org
• Free mp3 download of "Schalken the Painter" at LibriVox.org
• Free mp3 download of "Green Tea" at LibriVox.org
• Free mp3 download of "Wylder's Hand" at LibriVox.org
• Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu at Find a Grave

Izabela Trojanowska
Background information
Birth name	Izabela Schütz
Origin	POL
Genres	Pop, Rock, New Wave
Occupations	singer, actress
Years active	1980-present
Labels	Tonpress, EMI
Associated acts	Budka Suflera

Izabela Trojanowska (born April 22, 1955 in Olsztyn, maiden name: Schütz) is a Polish singer and film actress.

Career[link]

Trojanowska rose to fame in 1980, backed with popular Polish rock band Budka Suflera, when she sang "Wszystko czego dziś chcę" at National Festival of Polish Song in Opole. This song, along with "Tyle samo prawd ile kłamstw", became massive hits and made Trojanowska one of the most popular singers of the early 1980s in Poland. Romuald Lipko, Budka Suflera's leader, composed eight tracks for her debut album, entitled simply Iza and released in 1981. The same year Trojanowska teamed up with another rock band, Stalowy Bagaż, with whom she recorded an EP and sang at Festival in Opole. Their performance drew controversies as the singer was wearing a red tie on stage, typical for the outfit of the members of Union of Polish Youth. The organisation accused her of profaning the Union.

By the early 1982 Izabela finished recording her second longplay, Układy. The album showcased rockier sound and spawned subsequent hits: "Brylanty" and "Karmazynowa noc". Later that year she paired with Tadeusz Nalepa for the album Pożegnalny cyrk, strongly criticizing martial law in Poland. That record was however withdrawn by censorship office and not released until 11 years later. The singer was criticized by both Solidarity and communist government and decided to leave the country. Together with her husband moved to the Netherlands, USA, United Kingdom, finally settling down in Germany.

In 1990 Trojanowska recorded a self-titled, English language album. That turned out a commercial failure, bringing only a minor hit "Independence Day". In 1996 another album was released, Chcę inaczej, to warmer reception. It was promoted by singles "I stało się", "Więcej niż życie" and "Nareszcie czuję". Next year she accepted an offer of playing one of the main characters in Klan, a Polish hit soap opera. She announced the release of her first studio album in 15 years for the fall of 2011.

Discography[link]

• 1981: Iza
• 1982: Układy
• 1990: Izabela Trojanowska
• 1993: Pożegnalny cyrk
• 1996: Chcę inaczej
• 2011: Życia zawsze mało

External links[link]

• Official website
• Official YouTube page