Chapter 4: Reading Carmilla as the Origin of Vampiric Fiction

As of now, Carmilla seems to be a popular work of vampiric fiction with several spinoffs coming in later years. The one thing that strikes me right after looking at the cover of the novella is the subtitle used by Pushkin Press. In 2020, Pushkin Press published its version of the novella, titling it Carmilla: The Cult Classic that inspired Dracula. The striking feature, as I already said, is the subtitle, calling the novella a cult classic and becoming the inspiration for Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula, which tickles my fancy to investigate it further. Signorotti in “Repossessing the Body: Transgressive Desire in Carmilla and Dracula” says, “many of the earlier tales provide little more than a collective history of the vampire lore Stoker incorporated in Dracula, but Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s little-known “Carmilla” (1872) is the original tale to which Stoker’s Dracula served as a response” (607). So, what makes it a cult classic? Why is Pushkin Press saying it inspired Dracula? Are there any similarities between the two fictions…?