Is this the year I finally tackle “Varney the Vampyre?”
One of the most notorious of the Victorian penny dreadfuls (inexpensive serialized tales of a decidedly lurid nature, designed to capitalize on the rise of literacy among the working class), “Varney” first appeared in 109 weekly installments issued from 1845 to 1847.
While penny dreadfuls were not, by any stretch of the imagination, great literature, they could conjure undeniably powerful images and provoke a kind of morbid curiosity that have left their mark on popular fiction down the centuries.
Take this passage from “Varney:”
“Her bosom heaves, and her limbs tremble, yet she cannot withdraw her eyes from that marble-looking face. He holds her with his glittering eye…
“With a sudden rush that could not be foreseen – with a strange howling cry that was enough to awaken terror in every breast, the figure seized the long tresses of her hair, and twining them round his bony hands he held her to the bed. Then she screamed…. Her beautifully rounded limbs quivered with the agony of her soul. The glassy, horrible eyes of the figure ran over that angelic form with a hideous satisfaction – horrible profanation.”
Say what you will about the prose, I’ve been able to quote that last sentence since the first time I encountered it, some 40 years ago. Also, “THE GIRL HAS SWOONED, AND THE VAMPYRE IS AT HIS HIDEOUS REPAST! (“Horrible” and “hideous” are used a lot in “Varney.”) THAT’S the power of the penny dreadful.
And it’s just a taste of Chapter One.
“Varney” was published anonymously (who could blame the author?), and its true provenance remains a matter of debate. Was it James Malcolm Rymer – as seems to be the current consensus – or Thomas Peckett Prest? Either one or both are also believed to have had a hand in the creation of penny dreadful icon Sweeney Todd. Some believe they may have worked in tandem.
It was common for these writers to get paid by the word, so they very quickly became adept at being able to spin out sensational stories to monumental length. Publishers were elated by proliferating sales spurred by hooked and ever-expanding audiences. It’s the same system that gave rise to more respectable authors such as Dickens, Thackeray, and Trollope; but penny dreadfuls dealt unapologetically with extravagant melodrama, flamboyant highwaymen, grisly murder, occult transgressions, exotic Gypsies, blasphemous monk-and-nunsploitation, and cheap knock-offs of more reputable (and more expensive) bestsellers.
Whoever was the animating force behind “Varney” wound up pounding out the first complete vampire novel in the English language. (Among those who made earlier attempts was Lord Byron – a fragment later elaborated upon by his physician, John Polidori – the product of the same summer of 1816 contest that produced Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein.”)
For as hideous as “Varney” is on every level, the folkloric traits that the author (or authors) synthesized and dramatic situations he (or they) concocted have left their stamp on vampire fiction and movies. Without “Varney,” we would not have had Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” much less Barnabas Collins.
Along the way, Varney begins to develop a conscience and the story flirts with his psychological struggle. For the first time, the vampire is portrayed as a tragic figure. In the end, after a two-year spree, fatigue gets the best of him – AND the writer(s) and probably the public and by extension the publisher – and the vampire decides to destroy himself. [SPOILER ALERT: He hurls himself into Mount Vesuvius!]
The story was first published in book form in 1847. In 1972, it was reprinted in an affordable pair of Dover paperbacks. These soon became as difficult to locate as the vampire’s resting place. In the days before the internet, “Varney” attained a kind of legendary status, because it was simply unattainable. I had only excerpts that were included in anthologies of vampire fiction and English popular literature to whet my appetite.
Now, of course, secondhand copies can be found online. And the work has been reprinted, so you don’t have to break the blood bank to purchase those elusive Dover editions. Dover itself has reprinted them. I just ordered a pair of library discards, which include the original illustrations. I imagine not only is the collected “Varney” more manageable when broken up into two volumes, but the illustrations will be welcome oases for the eyes.
For now, my copy is a super-affordable Wordsworth Editions paperback, published in the U.K., which I located at the Strand bookstore in New York City, probably over a decade ago, for dirt-cheap. The paperback runs to 1166 closely-printed pages. It might prove to be a little rich even for my blood! Also, my eyes aren’t what they used to be. So I am looking forward to the arrival of the Dover edition. There are no illustrations in the Wordsworth volume.
At the time I purchased “Varney,” I also picked up the Wordsworth reprint of another collected penny dreadful, George W. M. Reynolds’ “Wagner the Werewolf,” which I read – and posted about – back in 2014. You can read my thoughts about it here:
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I’d be very interested to know what books you’ll be sinking your fangs into this month. Happy Halloween!
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