 Cover from one of the original publications. | |
| Author | James Malcolm Rymer Thomas Peckett Prest |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Penny dreadful/Gothic horror |
Publication date | 1845–1847 (serial) 1847 (book) |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 876 (book) |
Varney the Vampire; or, the Feast of Blood is a Victorian-era serialized gothic horror story variously attributed to James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest. It first appeared in 1845–1847 as a series of weekly cheap pamphlets of the kind then known as "penny dreadfuls". The author was paid by the typeset line,[1] so when the story was published in book form in 1847, it was of epic length: the original edition ran to 876 double-columned pages[2] and 232 chapters.[3] Altogether it totals nearly 667,000 words.[4]
It is the tale of the vampire Sir Francis Varney, and introduced many of the tropes present in vampire fiction recognizable to modern audiences.[5] It was the first story to refer to sharpened teeth for a vampire, noting: "With a plunge he seizes her neck in his fang-like teeth".[6]
- ^ David J. Skal (1996). V is for Vampire: An A to Z Guide to Everything Undead. Plume. pp. 210–212.
- ^ The last page number of the 1847 edition is printed as 868, but this does not take into account that pages 577–584 were repeated.
- ^ The last chapter of the 1847 edition is printed as "CCXX" (220), but this was due to numerous errors in the chapter numbering, possibly caused by confusion over roman numerals, resulting in 12 more actual chapters than the final chapter numeral would indicate.
- ^ Calculated from the complete text at the University of Virginia
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
AFPwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Cronin, Brian (29 October 2015). "Did Vampires Not Have Fangs in Movies Until the 1950s?". HuffPost. Retrieved 27 September 2017.