?Carmilla? is an 1872 Gothic novella by the Irish author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Predating Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) by 26 years it is also one of the earliest works of vampire fiction. The story is narrated as part of the casebook of Dr Hesselius an occult detective. Set in Styria in the then-Austrian Empire a young girl Laura narrates the blood-curdling tale of the vampire Carmilla or Mircalla the Countess Karnstein. Carmilla has often been adapted to film opera and other media and has inspired the author Anne Rice.
