Episode 14: Carmilla by J S Sheridan Le Fanu (Part One)

Classic Ghost Stories

Tony Walker

Fiction, Drama, Science Fiction

4.9 • 686 Ratings

🗓️ 2 November 2019

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Joseph Sheridan Le FanuJ S Le Fanu was born in Dublin to a family of mixed descent. His father’s line were French Huguenots hence the French surname. Like many horror and ghost story writers his father was actually a clergyman. He studied law as his career at Trinity College Dublin. He didn't actually live in Dublin at the time but you could do a kind of distance learning. He became editor of a literary magazine at this time.Le Fanu was active in the campaign to try and stir the British government to do something about the Irish famine. It didn’t work.He wrote in many genres he is most famous for his horror stories. But in general his horror stories are understated and emphasise atmosphere rather than pure horror.Carmilla is one of Le Fanu’s most famous stories. It is the prototypical Lesbian vampire novel. Possibly because of that it has become famous. This book of course was written at a time when Queen Victoria famously declared the ladies did not do such things. Not that they do in Carmilla either, they just get close,One of the charms of the story is it setting. It contains many of the romantic elements famous from Gothic fiction. It has the beautiful ancient and partly ruinous schloss in the middle of the Carinthian forest.I imagine that some of the descriptions of the two girls kissing and hugging was quite risque for its time. But it is perhaps because of this that Camilla has been made into films and adapted into different media across the years since its publication in 1872.Download Charles Dickens The Signalman Free Mp3 https://bit.ly/dickenssignalman (Subscribe to our list and keep in touch with the podcast. Learn of new episodes and bonus Content. )Support our work PLUS you get a free story right now!(The Story Link is in the Thank You Email)Show Your Support With A Coffee!https://ko-fi.com/tonywalker (Buy the thirsty podcaster a coffee...)Final Request: The SurveyI want to know what you want. If you have three minutes, I'd be grateful to know what you think of The Classic Ghost Stories Podcast.https://my.captivate.fm/Click%20here%20to%20go%20to%20the%20Survey (Click here to go to the Survey)Support the showVisit us here: www.ghostpod.orgBuy me a coffee if you're glad I do this: https://ko-fi.com/tonywalkerIf you really want to help me, become a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/barcudMusic by The Heartwood Institute: https://bit.ly/somecomeback Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Carmilla
0:07.0	Carmilla by Jay Sheridan LaFano
0:25.8	Prologue
0:28.1	Upon a paper attached to the narrative which follows
0:31.6	Dr. Heselyas has written a rather elaborate note
0:34.4	which he accompanies with a reference to his essay on the strange subject
0:38.4	which the manuscript illuminates. This mysterious subject he treats in that essay with his usual
0:44.4	learning and acumen, and with remarkable directness and condensation. It will form but one volume
0:50.7	of the series of that extraordinary man's collected papers.
0:59.7	As I published the case in this volume, simply to interest the laity, I shall forestall the intelligent lady who relates it in nothing and after due consideration.
1:04.5	I have determined, therefore, to abstain from presenting any precy of the learned doctor's
1:09.3	reasoning, or extract from his statement on the
1:11.8	subject which he describes as involving, not improbably, some of the profoundest arcana
1:17.5	of our dual existence and its intermediates.
1:21.1	I was anxious on discovering this paper to reopen the correspondence commenced by Dr. Heselyas,
1:26.8	so many years before, with a person so clever and careful as his informant seems to have been.
1:32.2	Much to my regret, however, I found that she had died in the interval.
1:37.6	She probably could have added little to the narrative which she communicates in the following pages,
1:42.8	with so far as I can pronounce,
1:44.3	such conscientiousness particularity.
1:48.7	One.
1:50.6	An early fright.
	...

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