Carmilla
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Carmilla Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 2,473 ratings
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"Carmilla" è un romanzo del 1872 di Sheridan Le Fanu. Questo autore è stato tra i primi a riportare il mito del vampiro nel suo luogo d'origine, quella vasta zona dell'Europa che dall'Austria giunge fino alla Russia estendendosi a tutta l'area balcanica.

Carmilla, racchiude in sè molte caratteristiche letterari che vanno da Coleridge, a Polidori, anticipando decisamente Bram Stoker e il suo "Dracula". Il fascino, la capacità di seduzione, l'apparente fragilità nascondono l'astuzia e la malvagità del vampiro. Chi apre la porta al vampiro, rischia di passare da vittima a vittima-complice, e, contagiato dal male, diventare a sua volta vampiro. Il racconto fatto in prima persona dalla vittima suscita spesso nel lettore la riflessione: ma come ha fatto a non pensarci? Se fosse capitato a me...

Dunque, se c'è una morale nel libro, è questa: state attenti. Non tutti i vampiri si nutrono di sangue solo sul piano materiale.

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  1. Listening Length
    2 hours and 58 minutes
  2. Author
    Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
  3. Narrator
    Silvia Cecchini
  4. Audible release date
    November 24, 2019
  5. Language
    Italian
  6. Publisher
    Collina d'oro
  7. ASIN
    B081HYHXKL
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
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Product details

Listening Length 2 hours and 58 minutes
Author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
Narrator Silvia Cecchini
Audible.com Release Date November 24, 2019
Publisher Collina d'oro
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language Italian
ASIN B081HYHXKL
Best Sellers Rank #232,430 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#6,898 in Horror Fiction
#39,266 in Horror Literature & Fiction

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
2,473 global ratings
Strangely Large Print
3 Stars
Strangely Large Print
I don’t mind the large page size because it leaves room to write notes but this is for sure not what I thought I was getting.. big boi
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Top reviews from the United States

JLD
5.0 out of 5 stars Creating the mood for vampires of old and new
Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2013
Verified Purchase
Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

This is an old book,a classic. Published around 1872 and about 25 years before Bram Stoker's Dracula. This is a must read for all vampire lovers.

I would consider this to be quite mild compared to many of today's versions of the Genre but there are many elements that still come through to today.

One of these that shows up markedly in Camilla is the lustful sexual nature of vampirism. In this instance it is of particular note in that there are undertones of lesbianism within the writing. Although it is circumspect enough, understandable for the time it was written, that it could be construed as a relationship of very close friends. It could even be considered as a cautionary tale about such friendships leading to no good.

This also chronicles the nature of the vampire stalking its prey with a persistence and a predatory nature that borders on both excessive compulsion to strange desire. It plays into the hypnotic nature of the vampire to the intended victim and the almost helplessness of that victim to recognize the danger they are in.

We also see that little bit about poking fun at itself in that there is an added explanation that when the vampires are among society they look normal and health as opposed to pale cyanic.

In their casket and grave they are still somewhat lifelike faint breathing but are surrounded by a pool of blood.

To be killed, they are staked and beheaded.

The story takes place in Styria a state in Austria. Laura and her father live in a remote castle whose nearest neighbor is an abandoned village where the family of Karnstein once lived.

Laura begins her story by recounting a nightmare she had as a child where a strange but beautiful woman comes to her bed. It starts out as a delightful comforting experience until she feels two needles poke her near her breast.

Fast forward to a young adult and she shows us how isolated and lonely her home is. She is hopeful for a visit from their friend, General Spielsdorf's, niece, Bertha Rheinfeldt. Much to her horror and dismay a letter is received explaining Bertha's untimely death. All of this figures into the story.

As fortune might have it one day while enjoying the evening air and the moonlight. This scene sounds like its straight out of those old black and white movies we loved so much and stayed up late watching on tv. A mist like smoke over the low ground like a transparent veil. Only in the story Laura makes it sound beautiful instead of foreboding. A carriage, almost out of nowhere, arrives in a seeming hurry that causes it to have a near catastrophe.

From the carriage come a stately lady and her, purported, daughter. The lady has some immense secret emergency and she fears taking her injured and sickly daughter too far. This seems to play on Laura's father's sense of chivalry and he offers to take the girl into his home to have Laura's governess take care of her and to afford companionship for Laura.

It is not until later inside the castle home that Laura discovers the face of this woman matches the face in her dream. Despite the horror it gives her Laura is inexplicably drawn to this woman. They become fast friends though many times the liberty that Carmilla takes with that friendship cause Laura uneasy feelings.

Camilla seems to be afflicted with some sort of illness and always seems weak. She is paranoid and has to lock herself in her bedroom at night, alone. She doesn't rise until around noon. She often lapses into moods where she expresses a very deep affection for Laura.

When reports start coming in of some malady killing women in a nearby village and Laura begins to have dreams similar to the one she had so long ago. Laura begins to feel tired and desperate, thinking she may be suffering from the unexplained illness that is going around.

It is not until the General comes back to the area to visit that things begin to unfold and make sense. But, Laura is conflicted by here feelings for Carmilla when she hears what must be the truth.

There is an interesting, perhaps signature aspect in this story. The vampire seems to go by names that are anagrams of her original name. Millarca, Mircalla, and Carmilla.

Any aficionado of Vampires should read this book to delve into the root of the earliest published tales of this type of fiction.

If I have one disappointment from this; it's that there seem to be a group of people aiding this creature in getting ingratiated with their victims who are mentioned and noted in two different instances but we never know what their true role is in all of this.

J.L. Dobias
11 people found this helpful
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Kindle Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Have not read yet conditions review
Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2024
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Can't wait to read it. Arrived a little mangled but I hope pressing it between two book will help. The letters are big, wich is a plus.
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RDD
5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic of the Genre!
Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2018
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Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla” first appeared as a serial in “The Dark Blue” and tells the story of Carmilla, a female vampire, and her attempts to prey upon the story’s narrator, a young English ex-patriot woman who lives with her father in the Styria region of Austria. Laura, the narrator, has a vision of Carmilla while a young girl. She eventually forgets it until she learns of the death of a friend. A carriage accident results in a countess putting her daughter into Laura’s father’s care and Laura recognizes Carmilla as the girl she saw in her “dream.” Carmilla refuses to divulge her background to Laura, but alternates between extreme affection with romantic advances and melancholic distance. Girls in nearby towns begin dying of an unknown illness and Carmilla experiences pain at the sound of funerary hymns. Larua’s family, descended from the House of Karnstein, receives a shipment of restored heirlooms, including a painting of a countess named Mircalla who exactly resembles Carmilla. Laura’s friend’s father then visits and, together with Laura’s father, they visit the nearby ruins of Karnstein castle, where they open Mircalla’s tomb and find Carmilla floating in seven inches of blood. The men drive a stake through her heart, behead her, and burn the ashes.

The story appeared twenty-six years before Bram Stoker published “Dracula” and Le Fanu apparently based part of it on a 1751 dissertation by Dom Augustin Calmet titled “Traité sur les apparitions des espirits et sur les vampires ou les revenants de Hongre, de Moravie, &c.”. Interestingly, the word “vampire” only appears on page 84 of this publication and it is clear that the use of the word was meant to drive home the gothic elements of the story that the reader had encountered up to that point. That said, modern readers will have noticed all of the tropes of the genre prior to this point in the story, even if they didn’t know anything about “Carmilla”. The portrayal of a lesbian vampire was notable for its time, though Le Fanu primarily used this to combine religious fears of the time in order to base the terror in the transgression of mores about women’s sexuality. This version reprints the complete story in a nice hardcover volume with a simple, yet evocative, cover and makes a good gift edition for the vampire aficionado, though it does not include the original illustrations by David Henry Friston and Michael Fitzgerald.
16 people found this helpful
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Anonymous
3.0 out of 5 stars I expected scarier, even for a classic
Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2013
Verified Purchase
Honestly I am not sure what to say about this book. This has been a recommendation based on other things I have read. It sounded mysterious and I thought one day I will give this a try. Well, I happened to be trapped in the slowest day of work ever and figured it was time to give this a read. I fired up my kindle app and downloaded it.

Considering this is a classic I was well aware that this wasn't going to be something that made me keep the lights on at night, but expected a little bit of creepy anyway. Considering the time period it was written I would have to admit that it was eloquently written and kept me wondering what would happen next. The plot was easy to figure out very early on in the book, but there was still this nagging feeling that I might be wrong. I kept wondering what new information would happen next to give clues to the events unfolding.

In Carmilla, a young girl is visited at the age of 6 by a beautiful teenage girl (Carmilla) late one night. At first it is a calming event for her but something happens to wake her up screaming. Years later at the age of 14 she meets a girl the same age as her who is the unfortunate victim of a carriage accident. Her flustered mother must press on to the next town for urgent life or death business so she leaves Carmilla in the care of our main character and her father. Once this occurs there are strange happenings thought the household and mysteriously the town as well. Not a bad read, I didn't hate it but it wasn't a favorite either. I have satisfied my curiosity and now can move on.
One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Oliver Peters Maestri
3.0 out of 5 stars Baixa qualidade do material
Reviewed in Brazil on August 30, 2021
Verified Purchase
O livro é bom, eu adoro essa obra, sem críticas quanto a isso, comprei para treinar o inglês. Única coisa que me incomodou foi a baixa qualidade da capa e das páginas pelo preço oferecido. A capa é mole demais, é feita de papel de foto e a imagem borrada, parece que foi simplesmente impresso em casa e colado junto. As folhas são brancas e de baixa qualidade também. Esse é o tipo de livro que eu compraria por 10 reais em uma feira de rua, portanto não recomendo. Ademais, veio embalado corretamente, sem amassados e cumpriu para com a minha necessidade.
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Oliver Peters Maestri
3.0 out of 5 stars Baixa qualidade do material
Reviewed in Brazil on August 30, 2021
O livro é bom, eu adoro essa obra, sem críticas quanto a isso, comprei para treinar o inglês. Única coisa que me incomodou foi a baixa qualidade da capa e das páginas pelo preço oferecido. A capa é mole demais, é feita de papel de foto e a imagem borrada, parece que foi simplesmente impresso em casa e colado junto. As folhas são brancas e de baixa qualidade também. Esse é o tipo de livro que eu compraria por 10 reais em uma feira de rua, portanto não recomendo. Ademais, veio embalado corretamente, sem amassados e cumpriu para com a minha necessidade.
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3 people found this helpful
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ANNEDARINA
5.0 out of 5 stars Incroyable....!!! Mais vrai !!!!
Reviewed in France on January 18, 2024
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Vraiment je suis encore toute bizarre..... A la fin de mon livre....très bien écrit, et le suspens reste jusqu'à la fin....et nous retourne complètement à la fin, en sachant que dans ces pays ces faits sont vrais.....j'en suis toute bizarre!!!!
un bon livre vraiment.
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quinnvdg
3.0 out of 5 stars book !
Reviewed in the Netherlands on March 4, 2023
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slimmer than expected, but it still looks nice
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quinnvdg
3.0 out of 5 stars book !
Reviewed in the Netherlands on March 4, 2023
slimmer than expected, but it still looks nice
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Sylwia
5.0 out of 5 stars Ładne wydanie, duża czcionka
Reviewed in Poland on February 24, 2023
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Książka kupiona na prezent. Błyszcząca okładka, dobry papier, starannie zredagowany tekst.
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Naviru Shorno
5.0 out of 5 stars Macarlli
Reviewed in Spain on November 6, 2021
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He quedado maravillado con esta novela corta.

Tiene un tono melódico, una prosa con un estilo muy gótico y tétrico. A medida que avanzamos en la historia, con una narradora (Laura), inocente y tierna, en contraposición de Carmilla, que es lo que todos imaginamos desde un principio.

Me ha sorprendido encontrar en un libro publicado en 1872 lo que podría considerarse hoy en día como temática LGTB, escrita con una delicadeza y sutileza que hay que destacar por lo bien que se nos presenta el «romance» y cómo se lleva a cabo.

La historia de vampírica está muy bien construida, con un ritmo que aumenta capítulo a capítulo hasta que llegamos al inevitable desenlace agridulce, y digo esto, acostumbrados a los explosivos clímax con los que estamos acostumbrados la generación millenial.  

En resumen, un clásico que recomiendo leer a todos los amantes del género vampiro, o, a los que les gusten leer las novelas de época.
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