Olalla (short story)

"Olalla" is a short story by the novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer Robert Louis Stevenson.

It was first published in the Christmas 1885 issue of The Court and Society Review, then re-published in 1887 as part of the collection The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables.

[1] Stevenson wrote the story at the same time as he was proofing "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" (published 1886).

He is recovering from his wounds in a Spanish hospital, where his doctor suggests he take up temporary residence with a local family, but with their stipulation that he remain a stranger to them.

This was a very popular Gothic device, famously employed by Sheridan Le Fanu in his short story "Carmilla" and by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles.

The scene in which the Scotsman has deeply cut his hand and is attacked in a hysterical blood-drinking fashion by Olalla's mother does indeed ring of vampirism.