1872 meets 2025 · The same carriage crashes twice
Should you read Carmilla before Hungerstone?
No — and yes. No: Kat Dunn's Hungerstone is built to stand alone. Yes: the original is about 28,000 words — one evening — it's free, and it is the book Hungerstone argues with on every page.
The answerWhat Hungerstone isSide by sideThe split verdictWhat you'd missQuick answers
Read order · One recommendation
The answer
If Hungerstone is already in your hands, read it — you'll be fine. In every other case, read Carmilla first, tonight. The novella costs nothing, finishes in under two hours, and already holds every image Dunn reworks — the crashed carriage, the languid guest, the hunger dressed as love.
Zando · February 2025 · Lambda winner
What Hungerstone actually is
Hungerstone (Zando, February 2025; paperback February 2026) is sold openly as a reworking of Carmilla — and it worked: national bestseller, an NPR best book of 2025, a Lambda Literary Award winner. Dunn moves the story to the Peak District in 1888: Lenore, ten years into a chilly marriage to steel magnate Henry, is readying a country house for a shooting party when a carriage accident leaves a woman named Carmilla in her care. Appetite — for food, for women, for a life not chosen for her — replaces the vampirism of 1872, and in her own essay on the book, Dunn is explicit about writing back at the Victorian original.
Two books · One guest
Side by side
The teller
1872Laura — nineteen, lonely in a Styrian schloss, writing it down years later.
2025Lenore — a decade into a cold marriage, run like one of her husband's works.
The arrival
1872A carriage crashes at the bridge below the schloss; a languid guest stays.
2025A carriage crashes on the moors; a languid guest stays.
The hunger
1872Blood, dressed as courtship — “the ardor of a lover.”
2025Appetite itself — food, desire, rage, undressed.
The heat
1872Nothing on the page; all of it in the restraint.
2025Explicit — reviewers are unanimous.
The length
1872About 28,000 words; an evening.
2025A full novel; a weekend.
The men
1872Fathers and a General — protective, useless, lethal.
2025A husband — and what a wife's compliance costs.
The 1872 side is featured in Chromatics right now — free, complete, finished before you sleep.
The reception · Split
The split verdict
The reception is divided, and the divide is useful. The Mary Sue called it one of the best Carmilla adaptations there is. The Lesbrary ran two reviews that disagree — one haunted by it, one let down and wanting more Carmilla on the page. Both camps agree on what the book is doing; they split on whether it works. Note the disappointed camp's complaint: not enough Carmilla. The original is 28,000 words and free.
Styria · Laura · Chapter IV
What you'd miss by skipping 1872
Mostly: a book that cannot say what it is saying. Dunn writes appetite openly; Le Fanu couldn't say it at all, and that pressure is important — dread and desire in the same sentence, a courtship conducted entirely in murmurs. It comes through fully only in the original. You'd also miss the original ending, stranger and quieter than any adaptation keeps it — the conversation page spoils it properly.
“I have been in love with no one, and never shall,” she whispered, “unless it should be with you.”
How beautiful she looked in the moonlight!
Hungerstone · Asked and answered
Quick answers
Do I need to read Carmilla first?
No — it stands alone. But the original is an evening long and free, and reading it first turns the retelling into an argument you can hear both sides of.
Is Hungerstone a retelling of Carmilla?
Explicitly — the publisher sells it as a reworking of the vampire novel that inspired Dracula. The carriage, the guest, the unnameable illness: all inherited, all reworked.
Is Hungerstone spicier than Carmilla?
Considerably — reviewers agree. The novella has nothing explicit; the heat is all in the restraint.
How long is Carmilla?
About 28,000 words — under two hours for most readers. Free at Project Gutenberg and featured, free, in Chromatics.
What else reworks Carmilla?
S.T. Gibson's An Education in Malice (2024, dark academia), Amy Chu's graphic novel Carmilla: The First Vampire, the 2014–16 web series — and Dracula, depending who you ask.
Your shelf · Nearby
Keep going
The original gets a full room: the Carmilla conversation. Buying a printed copy? Every edition, compared — including the one with the invented introduction. And the claim on Hungerstone's own cover — that this novella inspired Dracula — is weighed here.
Read the original before the retelling — Carmilla is featured now, free in full, every voice in its own color.
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