Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Victorian Literature

Varney the Vampyre Rediscovered

Earlier in the month, I posted about “Varney the Vampyre,” perhaps the most notorious of the Victorian penny dreadfuls, and how I was seriously thinking about tackling the 1166-page tome that is the collected serial for the month of October. (Those weekly installments do add up!)

I also mentioned how impossible it was for decades to track down a copy of the novel, especially before the internet, and then after, once it was possible, how ridiculously expensive even the reprints had become. I had access to only a few chapters in ghost story anthologies and volumes of 19th century popular British fiction in my own library.

Then I found a cheaply-printed paperback (issued by Wordsworth Editions, based in the U.K.), perhaps 15 years ago, at the Strand Book Store in New York, and was thrilled to purchase it. However, the text is so closely printed, and in such a small font, that you’d have to have the eyes of an eagle to read it. Nevertheless I took up the challenge, hoping that my aquiline nose counts for something.

In the meantime, I searched on eBay and came across some library discards of the two-volume Dover reprint from 2015 (previously issued in 1972). I placed my order, and they arrived quickly and in remarkably satisfactory shape, as if no one had even read them! Of course, they’ve been laminated and there are the usual library markings, but I can deal with that.

This edition is on good paper and has all the illustrations, though, admittedly, the reproduction is not always of the finest quality, with parts of the individual letters murky or even missing. Also, the layout is in two columns on each page, in the manner of those Sherlock Holmes Strand reprints. Even so, having now switched over from the Wordsworth Editions, I have to say, it is surprisingly readable, even in bed, late at night, under drooping eyelids. Add in the fact that both volumes combined cost me less than $20, and I am as happy as a vampire in a blood bank.

Over the decades, whenever I mention “Varney” to anyone, they nearly always respond with a disbelieving laugh, as if they’re not sure they’ve heard me correctly. “VARNEY THE VAMPYRE???” So it was a comfort to me, when I brought it up over coffee last week, that my former newspaper editor, now retired, knew just what I was talking about. Then again, he also knew what I was talking about when I brought up “Killdozer.”

In terms of actual content, as I mentioned before, the lurid incident and overheated exclamations can pile up awfully fast. Also the sentimentality. But really, taking any page at random, it’s not much worse than your average Victorian novel. That’s not to say, cumulatively, “Varney” is going to add up to “Great Expectations” or “Vanity Fair!”

Collectively, “Varney” is credited with being the first complete vampire novel in the English language, predating “Dracula” by 50 years. Having read the first number of chapters, all I have to say is, Bram Stoker has some splainin’ to do! All the conventions are in place, the author (speculated to be James Malcolm Rymer) apparently having done much of the legwork in exhuming the disparate elements from European folklore and assimilating them into what would become the groundwork for the genre. Furthermore, based on what I’ve read so far, it appears he even established the prototype for at least the Lucy segment of Stoker’s (admittedly superior) novel.

If you missed my previous “Varney” post, on October 2, here’s the link.

Looking forward to plenty of dark and stormy nights with this unabridged “Varney the Vampyre!”

October 13, 2024
Varney the Vampyre Penny Dreadful Review

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:

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=280906105410020&set=a.279006378933326

I’d be very interested to know what books you’ll be sinking your fangs into this month. Happy Halloween!

October 2, 2024
Anne Brontë’s Wildfell Hall A Tormented Valentine

On Sunday, I finally completed Anne Brontë’s ‘’The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” – all blessed 489 pages of it – successfully wrapping up my third consecutive, tormented year with the Brontës for Valentine’s Day.

First of all, let me say there doesn’t seem to have been a weak link between the Brontë sisters, in regard to their respective talents as writers. Indeed, since the sisters published under pseudonyms (Currer Bell for Charlotte, Ellis Bell for Emily, and Acton Bell for Anne), it was often speculated, early on, that the three were the same person. So perhaps there’s a powerful argument to be made for growing up in comparative isolation and having to make your own entertainment, with only your siblings, the moors, a good library, and a single, working father with progressive ideas about freedom and a sound education to sustain you. Being the offspring of a minister also ensured a fluency in recalled bible passages, which are alluded to frequently throughout the Brontës’ writings, not least in “Wildfell Hall.”

For me, the great weakness of Anne’s novel (her second, after “Agnes Grey”) is in its structure. So compelling is the book’s miserable second act, that it makes the framing device, especially the ending, seem almost precious by comparison. Loosely epistolary in nature (employing a narrative device of telling the story through letters and journal entries), the novel conveys its information to the reader through two of its central characters. And one of them, the panting George Markham, is as problematic in his way as the rakish Arthur Huntingdon. Is he really any more a fulfilling match for Helen than her husband (abusive S.O.B. that he is)?

To be fair, in the passages narrated by Markham, the character’s obsessive, frequently cloying, quasi-adolescent protestations of love for Helen are understandably central to his thoughts; but how often does he actually think about HER? Whereas Helen, with all her suffering, comes across as someone of much greater substance. She certainly displays more resilience in a society where the rules are stacked against women, whose fortunes, in all senses, are basically tied up with their husbands or fathers. If a woman winds up in a bad marriage, she’s stuck, and Helen marries a monster.

But face it, that’s why we love the Brontës, for the tempest-tossed heroines who can’t seem to resist the storm. Unfortunately, Arthur possesses neither the wounded nobility of Rochester nor the demonic fury of Heathcliff. Nor, sadly, does George. What compels is Helen’s degradation in an isolated, loveless, often empty mansion. I suppose it’s a metaphor to some extent for her unrequited love for a scoundrel who is in no way worthy of it.

The first act reads almost like a Jane Austen novel, with all the gossip and social maneuverings of a rural community of farmers, clergymen, and gentlefolk. The third is a pat, precious denouement. But it is in the long central portion, which doesn’t begin until about 150 pages in, in which Helen Huntingdon tells the tale of her harrowing marriage to the scapegrace Arthur (via her journal), that “Wildfell Hall” becomes so horribly compelling, as the narrator details the mounting degradation and hopelessness of her union.

This is my fourth Bronte novel, actually, having read Charlotte’s “Shirley” a little over 30 years ago, when taking a graduate course on the Victorian novel. In her way, Helen has been received as a cutting-edge feminist, within the strictures of the Victorian social order, as would be Charlotte’s heroine. (Formerly the name Shirley had had masculine associations; that changed largely with the success of Charlotte’s novel, which was published in 1849, the year after “Wildfell Hall.”) But Helen’s options are sadly few. The extent of her power is that she can close a door against her husband and harbor plans, with few resources, to escape in the night. Talk about you’ve come a long way, baby!

She’s more resourceful than that, actually, as she also figures out a way to earn her own meager living – for as unlikely a means of financial sustenance as it is.

Helen’s got courage and resolve to burn, but the depths of her strength are truly revealed in a decision she makes in the second half of the book that illustrates her extraordinary selflessness, forgiveness, and grace, especially after having been treated so poorly, and under conditions in which she essentially risks everything.

I hate to use such a trendy label as “toxic masculinity,” but all the “gentlemen” seem to do in this book is hunt, gamble, carouse, and intimidate. At one point, even Markham, the “nice” alternative to Arthur, jealously brains a rival (who later turns out to be more than he seems).

Am I glad I read it? Sure! I’d probably rank it below Emily’s “Wuthering Heights,” if only because of the insane twistedness of the latter’s characters and narrative. Anne certainly wants for nothing, in terms of writing ability and insight, but the character of Arthur never achieves the magnetic Byronism of Heathcliff – not that that was necessarily her aim. That said, for me, Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre” is still the champ, wholly satisfying as the quintessential gothic romance.

Of the three, “Wildfell Hall” is the most unflinching in its realism. The sisters had plenty of first-hand experience with the trials and tribulations of debauchery, through the dissipation of their brother, Branwell. What’s remarkable is that Anne so well understood the wider social and romantic intricacies of the world beyond the parsonage. If the Brontës are anything to go by, finding employment as a governess must be very good training for a writer.

Interestingly, Charlotte was not a big fan of “Wildfell Hall.” The siblings all died early: Emily in 1848 at 30, Anne in 1849 at 29, and Charlotte in 1855 at 38. Charlotte survived the longest, and she was not timid in her criticism of “Wildfell Hall.” She even went so far as to suppress its republication. When the book did appear again, the text was abridged and mutilated, and like the character of Helen herself, was subjected to even further indignities over the years. So do be cautious, if you’re shopping for a copy, even if it’s advertised as “complete and unabridged!”

According to an afternote in my edition, a clothbound hardcover from Penguin Classics, the author’s personal copy of the first edition, with her handwritten notes and annotations, is housed at Princeton University Library (although there is some question as to whether or not the marginalia is in fact hers).

Classic Ross Amico, reading the world’s classics, so you don’t have to!

Now it’s well past time for me to sit down with a pad of paper and a biography of one of the key, though largely unsung, American instrumentalists of the 20th century, for an upcoming project I’m supposed to participate in, in earnest, beginning next week…

March 26, 2024
Jane Eyre A Gothic Romance

Over the years, I’ve seen at least two film adaptations of “Jane Eyre,” so I already had a pretty good idea of the trajectory of the plot. But when searching for suitable reading material for the month of February – a time when I thought I could still settle in to a comfortable brood under steely skies – I decided to finally take up the book. Too bad the Groundhog betrayed me, and it looks like an early spring! Anyway, it’s turned out to be a real page-turner. By coincidence, I stumbled across this comic this morning that pretty much sums up why I’ve always loved Gothic fiction.

February 20, 2022
Wagner the Werewolf: A Penny Dreadful Delight

What child doesn’t enjoy a good werewolf story? As a kid, I would be allowed to stay up past my bedtime if, for instance, “The Werewolf of London” were being shown on TV. I still own a book on werewolves my parents bought me on one our trips to FAO Schwarz in the mid-‘70s.

While I can’t claim to be werewolf-crazy in a post-“Twilight” world, I do still enjoy a classic monster tale well-told (hence, Classic Ross Amico).

“Wagner the Werewolf” (no relation to the composer) was one of at least three enormously popular penny dreadfuls to appear in the mid-1840s. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, penny dreadfuls were serialized, quite lurid tales designed to appeal to the increasingly literate working class. They were calculated page-turners, presenting a rogues gallery of highwaymen, murderers and supernatural creatures. One of these, “The String of Pearls,” begun in 1846, introduced the character of Sweeney Todd.

“Wagner” is an outrageous piece of bait-and-switch, an alleged werewolf tale which begins with an appearance by Johannes Faust, no less, who turns up in the storm-swept Black Forest of Germany to offer an aged shepherd an offer he can’t refuse. Naturally, it comes with a few fanged, furry strings attached.

Thereafter, any reader who bought the book based on the title hungrily pushes forward expecting an appearance of the horrid beast. He will have to wait a good long while, until page 62, in fact. Then again, until page 198. Then page 303. After a while, one begins to wonder, where wolf? It almost becomes a kind of in-joke, between the reader and himself.

When the wolf does show up, he generally dashes somebody’s brains out (usually by accident), though come to think of it, he does scoop up an unsuspecting child in front of his horrified parents. Oh yeah, and he tramples some swans. Other than that, he just runs really, really fast.

I know, no spoiler alert. But face it, if you read this book for the werewolf, you’re not going to be satisfied. Fortunately, the author, George W.M. Reynolds, couches his werewolf subplot in a labyrinthine tale of Renaissance intrigue, complete with swaggering banditti, sadistic nuns, Ottoman ambition, demonic visitations, and a real corker of a villainess, who in a way is also the novel’s heroine.

Lady Nisida, who plays deaf and dumb for much of the book, is quite a creation, ruthless, cunning and hopelessly in love with Wagner – a well-rounded figure (in more ways than one, as Reynolds is careful to describe nearly every time she appears).

She is easily the most compelling character in the book. You’ll find yourself pulling for her and the newly rejuvenated, fabulously wealthy Wagner – when she isn’t stabbing someone to death in the basement, that is. At least her heart is in the right place, and most of her evil deeds can be attributed to familial loyalty.

It’s interesting, too, to note Reynolds’ sympathetic treatment of the Jew Isaachar, who’s shown to be afraid much of the time (for good reason), but is given a nobility of character that is rare in Victorian fiction. Sure he’s subjected to terrible cruelty, but he’s a far cry from the usual hook-nosed moneylender. The Church, on the other hand, comes in for some pretty sound drubbings.

I confess I began the book with reservations. The first chapter is full of the kind of sentence fragments and abuse of punctuation that makes that other monstrous penny dreadful, “Varney the Vampire,” so painful to read. However, once he takes flight, Reynolds is a pretty fine storyteller. For all its obvious crudity and making-it-up-as-I-go shortcomings, “Wagner the Werewolf” is a ripping good yarn. I found myself thinking in places it was like Alexandre Dumas light.

Finally, it’s always sobering to look back on the “trash” of another era and find it to be probably too high-flown for the average reader of today. That’s a curse less likely to be broken than lyncanthropy.

April 5, 2014

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