HarperCollins is proud to present a range of best-loved, essential classics. 'I was conscious of a love growing into adoration, and also of abhorrence.' When lonely nineteen-year-old Laura welcomes an enigmatic stranger into her home in the heart of the Stryian forest, she has no idea that the beautiful Carmilla is not what she seems. Laura's childhood nightmares have resurfaced, and a mysterious illness is beginning to take hold as the intimacy between the two women evolves into something more sinister. First published in 1872, twenty-six years before Bram Stoker's Count Dracula, there was Carmilla, the original female vampire with a taste for innocent young women. Le Fanu's Gothic tale of dark obsession, ancient legend and wayward daughters set the stage for the many horror stories that followed.