Carmilla · 1872 · Still in print everywhere
Which Carmilla should you read? Every edition, compared
The short answer: to read the story, the free 1872 text is complete — Le Fanu finished it, and nobody has improved it. Pay for print when you want what the free text can't be: the Machado edition for the argument staged inside the book, Valancourt or Syracuse for scholarship, Pushkin or the new Union Square editions for the shelf. Below: what each one actually contains — and the one whose introduction is entirely invented.
Lanternfish Press · 2019 · A forgery, signed
Is the Machado introduction real? No — here's what it invents
The 2019 Lanternfish Press edition (series name: Clockwork Editions) frames the novella as Le Fanu's censored rewrite of real events — and invents the whole paper trail: Dr. Jane Leight, the Iowa academic said to have found letters hidden in the wall of Le Fanu's study in 1973; Veronika Hausle, the “real Laura” who wrote them; Marcia Marén, the “real Carmilla,” tried — says the fiction — for “morbid harlotry.” One supporting figure is borrowed from the Museum of Jurassic Technology, itself a museum of invented exhibits.
The footnotes keep the act up all the way down, and the book never breaks character — it has fooled readers since 2019, and at least one published review has repeated the “real correspondence” as fact. With Robert Kraiza's full-page illustrations, it's the edition for anyone who wants the argument about the book staged inside it. Know the frame is fiction going in — and don't cite the introduction in a term paper. People have.
The original the prank is built on is featured in Chromatics — free, all seventeen sections, no apparatus between you and 1872.
Nine ways to own one book
Every edition, in order of how most people choose
Chromatics — the app
The full 1872 text, featured and free — all seventeen sections, every voice keeping its own ink.
Read it if you want to read it tonight, not download it.
The standard free text — about 28,000 words, still downloaded some 9,500 times a month.
Read it if you want the plain file, for nothing.
Standard Ebooks — Le Fanu, Short Fiction
The novella inside their carefully typeset, free Le Fanu collection.
Read it if you want a clean ebook, and more Le Fanu after.
Lanternfish Press, ed. Carmen Maria Machado, 2019
Le Fanu wrapped in the invented apparatus above, illustrated by Robert Kraiza.
Read it if you want Machado's frame and already know it's fiction.
Valancourt Books, ed. Jamieson Ridenhour
The 1871–72 serial text with the original illustrations and footnotes that are true.
Read it if you want the book 1872 actually read.
Carmilla: A Critical Edition, Syracuse UP, ed. Kathleen Costello-Sullivan, 2013
The classroom standard: the text with explanatory notes and four scholarly essays.
Read it if you're writing a paper on her.
Pushkin Press Deluxe Edition
The art-deco one from the bookstore window — red foil, no apparatus.
Read it if you want the object everyone recognizes.
Union Square Signature Editions, 2026
The original text, new — a trade paperback August 4, then a gilded hardcover September 1 that adds The Room in the Dragon Volant.
Read it if you want it new — paper now, gilded in September.
Beehive Books, Carmilla: An Illuminated Edition
A clothbound folio illustrated by Rosemary Valero-O'Connell, introduced by Poppy Z. Brite, at collector prices.
Read it if you collect books as art.
Three ways to hear her
The audiobooks
Three recordings, three different products. The Audible Originals full-cast dramatization — Rose Leslie as Laura, Phoebe Fox as Carmilla, David Tennant in the cast — is the event: about two hours, adapted, not the unabridged text. Elizabeth Klett's LibriVox recording is the free unabridged standard, from one of LibriVox's beloved narrators. Tracey Childes' is the paid solo pick.
Editions · Asked and answered
Quick answers
Is the Machado introduction real?
No — fiction presented as scholarship, start to finish. Dr. Jane Leight, the wall-cavity letters, the Marén trial: all invented.
What's the difference between the original and the Machado edition?
The frame. Machado wraps the novella in a fictional documentary apparatus — an introduction and footnotes that never break character. The Gutenberg text is the apparatus-free control.
Is there an annotated Carmilla?
Three: Valancourt (scholarly footnotes, original illustrations), the Syracuse Critical Edition (notes plus four essays), and Machado's — whose notes are part of the fiction.
Is Carmilla public domain?
Yes, worldwide — serialized 1871–72, and Le Fanu died in 1873. That's why the full text is free at Gutenberg and free, featured, in Chromatics.
Your shelf · Nearby
Keep going
This page annexes the Carmilla conversation — two readers arguing whether it's a love story or a warning. The Dracula debt every blurb asserts is weighed on the Stoker page, and the read-the-original-first question is settled on the Hungerstone page.
Carmilla is featured now — the whole 1872 text in color, free, one evening long.
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