BEFORE DRACULA (PART 2) Vaney the Vampyre
VARNEY THE VAMPYRE or The Feast of Blood is considered the first vampire
novel written in English. It was published as a serial novel or as they were
then called a Penny Dreadful. Varney began in 1845 and ran for two years and 109
installments, 220 chapters in all.
Penny Dreadfuls, also called Penny Bloods and Blood and Thunders, were 8 page
booklets that sold for a penny. At a time when the price of books were beyond
the common man, Penny Dreadfuls filled the insatiable hunger of the masses. They
were the soap operas of the day. You could compare Varney to Dark Shadows, each
episode packed with excitement and adventure and romance.
There is a question about who actually authored Varney since Penny Dreadful
authors were rarely identified, but authorship is generally credited to Thomas
Preskett Prest or James Malcolm Rymer. Both men were part of Publisher Edward
Lloyd’s stable of writers. Prest and Rymer were among Lloyd’s best and most
prolific writers. Each was capable of working on as many as ten serial novels at
one time. Though it will probably never be determined with any certainty, Rymer
is thought to be the actual author.
Varney is very much a product of its times, a gothic novel filled with
the dark nights, romantic castles, hauntings that were so popular at the time.
It was also written as a serial novel, so it is more episodic than a story with
a complex plot and storyline. This is because if the story’s popularity
declined, an author might be told to end a story with the next week’s episode.
Varney is a classical read, much like the books Frankenstein or even Dracula,
which bear little resemblance to the vision we have of either book based on the
movies.
Varney may not be great literature but it is fun to read.
Here is how it begins:
VARNEY, THE VAMPYRE;
OR, THE FEAST OF BLOOD
A Romance.
CHAPTER I.
----"How graves give up their dead, And how the night air
hideous grows With shrieks!"
MIDNIGHT. -- THE HAIL-STORM. -- THE DREADFUL VISITOR. -- THE VAMPYRE.
The solemn tones of an old cathedral clock have announced midnight -- the air
is thick and heavy -- a strange, death like stillness pervades all nature. Like
the ominous calm which precedes some more than usually terrific outbreak of the
elements, they seem to have paused even in their ordinary fluctuations, to
gather a terrific strength for the great effort. A faint peal of thunder now
comes from far off. Like a signal gun for the battle of the winds to begin, it
appeared to awaken them from their lethargy, and one awful, warring hurricane
swept over a whole city, producing more devastation in the four or five minutes
it lasted, than would a half century of ordinary phenomena.
It was as if some giant had blown upon some toy town, and scattered many of
the buildings before the hot blast of his terrific breath; for as suddenly as
that blast of wind had come did it cease, and all was as still and calm as
before.
You can read the complete story at Humphrey Lui’s site
http://varney.50megs.com/
Humphrey Lui was part of James D. MacDonald’s Varney Project which weekly
serialized Varney as eText starting in 1993.
You can also find the complete text at University of Virginia http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/PreVar1.html
Victorian Web has a interesting article about Varney The Vampire from Barbara
T.Gates book, VICTORIAN SUICIDE: MAD CRIMES AND SAD HISTORIES, which Princeton
University Press published in 1988. Excerpted from Chapter 6, "Monsters Of
Self-Destruction," it gives insight into how the character Varney related
to the Victorian physique.
http://www.victorianweb.org/victorian/books/suicide/06a.html
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