Luella Miller

by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman, Albert Solé (Translator)

A new twist on the classic vampire story. Luella Miller first appeared in Everybody's Magazine in December 1902.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Classics, Fiction, Vampires, Gothic, School

ebook

First published January 1, 1902

About the author

Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman was born in Randolph, Massachusetts, and attended Mount Holyoke College (then, Mount Holyoke Female Seminary) in South Hadley, Massachusetts, for one year, from 1870–71. Freeman's parents were orthodox Congregationalists, causing her to have a very strict childhood.

Religious constraints play a key role in some of her works. She later finished her education at West Brattleboro Seminary. She passed the greater part of her life in Massachusetts and Vermont.

Freeman began writing stories and verse for children while still a teenager to help support her family and was quickly successful. Her best known work was written in the 1880s and 1890s while she lived in Randolph. She produced more than two dozen volumes of published short stories and novels. She is best known for two collections of stories, A Humble Romance and Other Stories (1887) and A New England Nun and Other Stories (1891). Her stories deal mostly with New England life and are among the best of their kind. Freeman is also remembered for her novel Pembroke (1894), and she contributed a notable chapter to the collaborative novel The Whole Family (1908). In 1902 she married Doctor Charles M. Freeman of Metuchen, New Jersey.

In April 1926, Freeman became the first recipient of the William Dean Howells Medal for Distinction in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She died in Metuchen and was interred in Hillside Cemetery in Scotch Plains, New Jersey.

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very strange and haunting story about a woman, Luella Miller, who brings death to anyone gettin in contact with her. What is behind that mystery? Let an old woman tell the tale of Luella Miller... I really liked the uncanny and movie like atmosphere. Well composed, well written and to the point. This is a very sinister story about a special woman and people surrounding her, a good psychological study. Would you have fallen for Luella? Compelling and recommended!

[Eloy Cryptkeeper · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Había muerto hacía años, sin embargo,algunos en el pueblo ,todavía creen en el cuento que vienen escuchado desde su infancia. En sus corazones sobrevive el horror y el miedo salvaje de aquellos antepasados vivieron en la época de Luella Miller. Y los jóvenes también observan con un estremecimiento la vieja casa, y los niños jamás juegan alrededor de ella"

"Ella tiene la fuerza suficiente para exprimir a los demás. ¿Débil? Mi pobre madre era débil: esta mujer la mató con la misma eficacia de un cuchillo"

Un interesante relato ,misterioso e inquietante
luella miller, una persona aparentemente debilitada y a su vez apática, que se considera incapaz de realizar cualquier tarea. Requiere ayuda de los demás para la totalidad de las cosas y toda persona que acude en su ayuda, inmediatamente se vuelve desvaído, marchito y luego muere repentinamente.
Probablemente este relato de 1902, sea uno de los precursores en ahondar en el concepto de "vampiro energético" o 'vampiro psíquico".

[clumsyplankton · Rating 4 out of 5]

It feels like a classic horror. I really liked it

[Althea Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic horror. There's a haunted house in town. Since it was abandoned, fifty years ago, only one person has dared to try to live there... and she promptly died. Rumors abound about the curse on the place... but only one elderly town resident remembers the woman who originally lived there, Luella Miller, and what happened to give the house a bad name forevermore.

The tale skirts around the edges of the supernatural in such a way as to remain thoroughly believable - and its insights are cuttingly acute. I hope you've never known anyone who'll you'll see in the character of Ms. Miller - but chances are, you have.

I liked this well enough to immediately pick up a whole collection of the author's stories.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy interesante descubrir los engaños de Lylia Anderson, ver por dónde se cae la historia.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25⭐

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

An unsettling tale that is on one hand a supernatural tale of psychic vampirism and on the other a metaphor for how people in our life can be allowed to drag us down. The characters and the tapestry of their relationships is crafted with needlepoint precision. This is largely told through a narrator who is disinclined to like Luella Miller, so the lightly unreliable nature adds to the unsettling events.

You can listen to and read this story for free on PseudoPod: http://pseudopod.org/2017/02/10/pseud...

[Scott Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Psychological and strange! This short tale features the bizarre death knell that one woman shrouds over her entire life - evidenced in the sickliness and eventual death of those around her. She emerges as a parasite character who sucks life from those on whom she is dependent and who languishes without them. Yet as horrifying as she becomes, she is nevertheless magnetic even to her detractors. Even the reader gets sucked into the vortex she creates.

[K. Anna Kraft · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've arranged my thoughts into a haiku:

"A pitiable waste.
When leeches find good people,
It's dreadful to watch."

[Kansas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cuento que se puede encontrar en la antologia de Valdemar "Malos Sueños" (Felices Pesadillas 2). Un relato sobre vampirismo.

[Byron Griffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Luella Miller by Mary Wilkins Freeman is a tale of vampirism yet not of the sanguine kind. The titular figure is a woman to whom many find themselves going out of their way for her benefit, working themselves to the point of death. Though of this power and sway Luella is ignorant, being not intentionally malicious rather she is portrayed as an unwitting source of suffering, who very much knows not what she does. The vampiric aspect to her can be seen as a metaphor, I am sure it was meant that way yet, it also is reminiscent of concepts such as psychic vampires and energy parasites and indeed the village people do come to raise the idea of witchcraft. Eventually one woman turns upon her and then in time all the people of the village come to cease aiding her. For never had she done work for herself and survived by the labours of others, which definitely fits with the common depiction of vampires as metaphors for a parasitic ruling class.

[leni swagger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strange, sinister, and spooky…Luella is literally sucking the life out of people (vampire???)…
Tbh good for her! Let the others work and have them die in the process #Queen

[Hoff The Librarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story of a mythical woman who leeches the life out of anyone who helps her, in degrees over years or with quick service, those who allow themselves to aid her life quickly lose their own. Told in a dialectic monologue, the whole tale is told in one monologue, though effectively and as if the action were happening in step with the telling. Sharp example of urban legend brand storytelling.

[for-much-deliberation ... · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice short haunted house story...

[Asun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disturbingly good, with the right touch of humour, grotesque and irony.

also, reading with a book editor-publisher's eyeview changes A Lot but I love it anyway

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me sé ya este cuento de memoria.

[Los libros de Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

"En sus corazones sobrevive el horror y el miedo salvaje de aquellos antepasados que vivieron en la época de Luella Miller". (Luella Miller, fragmento).

Qué gusto me da encontrarme con relatos y autores cuya existencia desconocía.

Luella Miller es una historia escrita por Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman y publicada en 1902. Recomiendo leer este cuento en su idioma original (inglés), ya que las traducciones a las que tuve acceso, no se encontraban bien realizadas y omitían puntos importantes de la narración.

La historia nos es narrada por Lydia Anderson, una mujer octogenaria, que en el pueblo es la única que conoció a Luella en vida. Todos quieren ayudar a Luella, ella es frágil y delicada, y sin embargo, ejerce cierto poder sobre las personas. Quien se acerca y pasa tiempo con ella desea ayudarle y servirle, hasta el punto de no dejarle hacer nada, hasta el punto de la extenuación y de la muerte.

Este relato nos introduce al tema vampírico, pero no del sangriento que conocemos de muchas otras historias, sino de un interesante vampirismo energético; a la vez que dirige, en mi opinión, una crítica a la pasividad e inutilidad de las mujeres victorianas y de los trabajos extenuantes que realizaba la servidumbre en esa época.

[Cristina Munster · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una historia corta que se lee rápido. El inició me gustó debido al misterio que se crea sobre Luella y quienes la cuidan, pero no encontré algo memorable en la trama y el final me pareció sencillo.

[Coleccionista de finales tristes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Luella Miller es un vampiro energético

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

assigned for horror lit course. Interesting take on the female vampire. Enjoyed that this story was told from a woman’s POV as well. Every other assigned reading was male POV dominated.

[Tim Pendry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Published in 1902, this has to be one of the finest American vampire stories ever written, not only for its relentless horror as the 'heroine' sucks dry all those who come close to her but because of its American small town context as distinctive as that of Alexei Tolstoy's transcarpathian village.

It is also a metaphorical treatment of psychological vampirism by the weak on the strong, perhaps even of passive-aggressive feminity, and so has been accepted by some as an allegorical tract for the 'New Woman' (a feminist ideal) of the period.

It has been pointed out that Luella Miller cannot be other than she is. This gives the story a problem as far as New England moralists are concerned - she is evil perhaps but there is no will to evil in her.

Her victims are drawn to her simply because of a natural relationship between her and them. The consequences are tragic but this might be interpreted as Mary Wilkins Freeman saying that the manipulative female cannot be blamed for she is as she is because of her condition in life.

[Cooky · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is bizarre on a first reading but the more you think about it-it's actually a very subtly drawn out analogy of how upper class women are made into helpless "life-sucking vampires" of the lower class/or just men in general and then blamed for it. (although of course there would be also exist readings other than this Marxist Feminist reading)

[Rick West · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story is fantastic! If you have not read it you should download it immediately. Great story about a woman who seems to literally suck the life out of everyone who cares for her. Her unreasonable demands on the people who are helping her appears to have fatal consequences.

[Carolina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Este relato cuenta la historia de una mujer enfermiza y perezosa que trae la muerte a todo aquél que asume las responsabilidades que ella no realiza. Más que ser un relato de vampiros parece una critica contra la pereza.

[Lynnaurya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found on YouTube as a Lobravox recording. A decent story for its time. A woman telling the local ghost story of a woman who seemed to suck the life out anyone who came to care for her. Quite spooky actually.

[Jessie Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this for my "evil woman" capstone class and I really enjoyed it. I thought that the ambiguity of what really happened with Luella and Lydia was a smart choice and I like how I still don't know what really happened with all of the deaths.

[Shark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una interesante historia vampírica, donde realmente odie a Luella Miller ya que representa todo lo que odio en una persona mimada, aprovechándose de los demás para poder sobrevivir. Igual que algunos cabros chicos que me caen remal xd

[Jolie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Striking, surprising, rather odd little ....vampire story..... perhaps...? I'd bet money this story influenced Shirley Jackson in some way, and although short, I suspect it could create some lively debates in a way not dissimilar from The Yellow Wallpaper.

[S]

Listened from BBC Radio 4, read by David Tennant.

[Vincentvanstop · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to a libravox recording by Margaret Lutrelle (sp?) on YouTube and enjoyed it quite a bit. The narration is a kind of caricature of New England horror.