Olalla

R.L. Stevenson's take (and subtle twists) on the ‘Victorian gothic' was immensely touching (and it's not often a short story renders me teary-eyed more than once)

loved it!

A short story reproduced in full in this Penguin Little Black Classic.

‘A Gothic vampire story' is the short summary.

First published in 1885, I was surprised how much I enjoyed the writing style. It is a very busy, wordy style, but it invokes great descriptive atmosphere, and sets the scene well.

There is a fair bit of criticism of the story going nowhere, or the story not really having an ending, but I didn't find this to be the case. I considered that the story played out quite well, and that there was sufficient closure at the end. True some aspects were left open, and there were some pacing issues (quite a long buildup to the action, and a fairly abrupt ending) but not terrible.

Spoiler about vampires: To be fair the vampire aspect lasted only a very short time, and then the action moved on and it was pure discussion, so don't go in expecting a whole 'Underworld-esque' vampire story.