Before You Begin

Before you begin.

In the forests and hills of Styria, Laura’s childhood unfolds within the walls of her father’s remote schloss. The country beyond its gardens is beautiful and lonely; the old house offers safety, but its long corridors and fading histories seem to keep their own counsel.

When a carriage accident brings a young stranger into Laura’s life, a chance meeting becomes an unusually close friendship. Carmilla is graceful, attentive, and difficult to know. As the two young women spend their days together, Laura begins to notice unsettling dreams and changes in her own health, while the household struggles to understand what is troubling her.

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu shaped this tale from the older Gothic tradition: a secluded estate, a landscape thick with memory, and the uneasy feeling that the past has not stayed buried. Yet Carmilla is also a story of companionship and perception, asking how well we can know someone who seems to understand us at once.

Turn the page and enter the illustrated gallery: meet Laura and Carmilla, explore the places that surround them, and revisit the scenes that give this Gothic romance its lasting atmosphere.