The Gothic novella Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu is one of the earliest works of vampire fiction and is considered the original prototype of the subgenre of lesbian vampire fiction. The story is presented as a chapter from the casebook of Dr. Hesselius, an unorthodox physician who is perhaps literature’s first “occult doctor”.  It is narrated by Laura, the protagonist, daughter of a wealthy Englishman living in retirement in a castle in the deep forest of Austria. She has vivid, persistent childhood memories of a beautiful visitor in her bedchamber.  A dozen years later a carriage accident brings a mysterious injured young woman into their home; Laura immediately recognizes her as the figure from her memory. At the same time her father learns of the untimely death of the daughter of a colleague. Other young girls are succumbing to a puzzling malady. The arrival of an heirloom painting of Laura’s ancestor Mircalla, Countess Karnstein, bears an identical likeness to their visitor, who is secretive, romantically forward and sometimes moody. When Laura and her father journey to their ancestral village they meet his colleague, General Spielsdorf, who relates his own ghastly story of the discovery of the vampire who caused of his daughter’s death and is searching for the tomb of the Countess. The General unmasks Carmilla when she appears on the scene, which leads to the inevitable conflict and climax.  Serialized in 1871-2 and published as a book soon after, the story has influenced many others since, not least Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw.