Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla: Bram Stoker’s Inspiration for Dracu

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanus Carmilla Bram Stokers Inspiration for genus Dracula3 May. Bistritz. Left Munich at 835 p.m. Abraham Stoker in this unassuming way begins his Gothic masterpiece, Dracula (The Annotated Dracula 1). Dracula has been called imaginative and original. , and Harry Ludlam calls it the product of his own pictural imagination and imaginative research (Senf 41). However, the originality of Stokers Dracula is in doubt. By a similarity in the setting, characters and plot, in Bram Stokers Gothic work Dracula and the posthumously published short story Draculas Guest, Stoker is shown to have used Joseph Sheridan Le Fanus classic, Gothic, short story, Carmilla, as the basis and fervency for Bram Stokers vampiric masterpiece, Dracula. In 1897, Abraham Stoker published Dracula, a classic Gothic falsehood which continues to capture the hearts and imaginations of readers after nearly a century. The novel is written as a collection of journals, which are kept in a wide array of methods, letters and newspaper clippings. Dracula opens in east Europe with a young solisitor named Jonathan Harker traveling to Transylvanian castle. The castles owner, Count Dracula, is cruel in the manner of great evil, and uses Harker to have himself safely ferried to England and its fertile chase ground of London. Dracula soon becomes embroiled in the lives of a small group of friends who see him for the fiend that he is. These young people, aided by the ageing Dr. Van Helsing vow to see Dracula destroyed, and they succeed in driving him out of England and back to his homeland. They follow hard upon and catch him just before he reaches the safety of his castle. Within sight of safety, Jonathan Harker and Quency Morris behea... ...cula The lamia and the Critics. Ed. Margaret L. Carter. Studies in Speculative Fiction 19. Ann Arbor UMI, 1988. 231-45. Leatherdale, Clive. Dracula The Novel and The Legend. Wellingborough Aquarian, 1985. Le Fanu, James Sheridan. Carmilla. Vampire s Two Centuries of immense Vampire Stories. Ed. Alan Ryan. Garden City Doubleday, 1987. Melton, J. Gordon. The Vampire Book The Encyclopedia of the Undead. Detroit Visible Ink, 1994. Senf, Carol A. Introduction. The Critical Response to Bram Stoker. Ed. Carol A. Senf. Westport Greenwood, 1993. 1-41. Stoker, Bram. The Annotated Dracula. Ed. Leonard Wolf. New York Ballantine, 1975. ---. Draculas Guest. Vampires Two Centuries of Great Vampire Stories. Ed. Alan Ryan. Garden City Doubleday, 1987. Roth, Phyllis A. Bram Stoker. Twaynes English Authors Series 343. Boston Twayne, 1982.