Writen in 1872, more than twenty years before Bram Stocker’s Dracula, Le Fanu’s masterpiece is one of the first vampire stories. And Carmilla is the first female vampire in British literature.

Born in Ireland, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu was a politician and a man of letters. "The invisible prince", as he was nick-named, would often ask bookshops for "a lovely little ghost story". Whereas his own were much admired by Henry James.