Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan: Carmilla

Laura leads a secluded life in a castle buried deep in the Austrian forest, far away from the dangers of the outside world. That is until a horse and carriage crashes nearby one night, and she and her father take in a weary, young traveller - Carmilla. As mysterious as she is beguiling, Carmilla weaves her way into Laura's heart. Life proves less lonely with a friend. But sinister things start happening as the girls become closer, and the forest isn't the safe haven it once was.

Sheridan Le Fanu's nineteenth-century gothic tale was the first vampire novella. It paved the way for a literary tradition of female and lesbian vampires, and, before Dracula, explored the boundaries of sex and death. Still as chillingly alluring today as it was when it was written in 1871-2, Carmilla now joins Penguin's Little Clothbound Classics series.