The vampire, that pallid, nocturnal pest, has taken on many shapes over the centuries. Byron made him a sulky aristocrat. Stoker made him a real estate enthusiast with a fondness for bats. Hollywood turned him into either a suave lounge lizard or a disco-dancing count for children’s television. But before all that, we had Varney the Vampire (1845–47), a penny dreadful so long, so absurd, and so melodramatic that one wonders whether the true monster wasn’t Varney at all, but the poor typesetter who had to keep up with it every week.
Varney himself is described with all the subtlety of a pantomime villain: long teeth, bulging eyes, and a knack for popping through bedroom windows like a Victorian Avon salesman. He bites necks with the dedication of a man who’s been starved of a proper steak and kidney pudding, and every other chapter seems to feature him looming over yet another fainting maiden, while readers were assured that, yes, he still looks ghastly, and no, he hasn’t improved with age.
And yet, for all the melodrama, Varney’s also a bit of a whinger. He spends half his time complaining about his curse, regretting his lifestyle choices, and attempting suicide in various spectacular ways, before inevitably turning up alive again like an unwelcome in-law at Christmas. He’s perhaps literature’s first ‘sympathetic vampire’ – which is to say, a monster you’d quite like to throttle yourself, if only to stop the endless moaning.
It’s not hard to see why the penny dreadful crowd loved it. The gothic castle of earlier vampire tales is replaced with something closer to a suburban parlour. Varney doesn’t stalk duchesses – he harasses shopkeepers’ daughters. He is, in essence, the people’s vampire: a democratic bloodsucker, the sort of undead neighbour who borrows your lawnmower and never returns it.
The story, of course, never really knows when to end. Like all good serials, it just keeps going until everyone – author, reader, and probably Varney himself – is exhausted. Finally, weary of his own existence, he flings himself into Mount Vesuvius, which is rather a dramatic way of saying, “I’ve had enough.” In fairness, by that point, so had everyone else.
Still, Varney the Vampire deserves a kind of ragged respect. Without him, we wouldn’t have Dracula, or Anne Rice’s tortured dandies, or Edward Cullen sparkling like a teenage disco ball. He’s the missing link between Gothic grandeur and modern melodrama – part Miltonic Satan, part Punch & Judy puppet. Not great literature, perhaps, but proof that even the trashiest hackwork can leave a legacy.
And so, the next time you roll your eyes at yet another brooding vampire on screen, remember poor old Varney – tragic, ridiculous, faintly embarrassing – who walked so that Twilight could pout.
Update: eerily, I found this on the internet this afternoon! Hilarious wording!
Wording 
Ah hah! So Varney’s to blame for Twilight eh? Well, as soon as I invent my time machine, I’m going to assassinate the writer/s of Varney and make The Future a much better place.
Assassinating Varney’s writers won’t save the future – there were too many of them, and they were paid by the yard. Kill him off and you risk wiping out Dracula too, and then we’d probably end up with Fifty Shades of Fangs. And Twilight isn’t Varney’s fault either – it’s just modernists doing what modernists do: turning penny dreadfuls into sparkles.
Dracula is an acceptable loss in this war, soldier. We’re talking about saving our entire civilization from Sparkly Vampires. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, can be of greater importance to the SSV Army (stop sparkly vampires).
If Skynet can wipe out John Connor, then we sure as shooting can wipe out Varney…
Permission to speak freely, sir? The real enemy isn’t Varney. It’s Stephanie Meyer. We must strike at the source.
Permission granted.
We’ll consider that as Plan B just in case something goes wrong with Operation Varney. But what could possibly go wrong with altering the past?
😀
Famous last words. That’s exactly what Skynet said before Judgment Day.
Hahahahaha 😀
Couldn’t resist a little update! Have a look at the vampire post – I’m sure you’ll appreciate it! 🤣