Varney the Vampire
Though there were many representations of literary vampires spun off Polidori's Lord Ruthven, it wasn't until the mid-1840s that the public was introduced to a different kind of vampire, one whose appearance and ferocity harkens back to the monstrous revenants of folklore.
Sir Francis Varney is the star of the penny dreadful turned novel Varney the Vampyre or the Feast of Blood thought initially to be written by Thomas Preskett Prest, with the general consensus now being that its author is James Malcolm Rymer.
Hideous in its conception, Sir Francis Varney (ambiguously cited as the reanimated corpse of 1640 suicide victim Marmaduke Bannerworth) is the epitome of cruelty and banality, his corpselike form stalking young girls in a disjointed epic that ran as 109 separate publications and later as a novel with 220 chapters amounting to over 860 pages.
One of Varney's victims dramatically describes him by saying: “There was a tall, gaunt form — there was the faded ancient apparel — the lustrous metallic-looking eyes — its half-opened mouth, exhibiting tusk-like teeth! It was — yes, it was — the vampyre!”
By definition, the term reanimation refers to the restoration of life or consciousness. Commonly used in the horror realm, with everything from Frankenstein to zombies to doppelgangers to killer bunnies, it serves to reinforce revenant folklore, as the majority of so-called vampires were reanimated corpses.
What Varney represents to vampire literature is yet another stage of evolution that, unlike Lord Ruthven, draws from the dark side of folklore while also retaining the traditional characteristics that have become synonymous with the drawing room vampire in general.
Perhaps Varney's most spectacular presentation, aside from the still unknown illustrator who gave brilliant life to the series, is ultimately Varney's demise, which is not by the hands of a vampire slayer but of his own volition. Rather dramatically, Varney leaps into the mouth of Italy's Mt. Vesuvius.
