Varney the Vampire
Thomas Peckett Prest
Publisher: Thomas Peckett Prest
Summary
Anthology containing: Varney the vampire; or, The feast of blood. Volume 1 Varney the vampire; or, The feast of blood. Volume 2 Varney the vampire; or, The feast of blood. Volume 3 Varney the Vampire - "Varney the Vampire; or, the Feast of Blood" is a Victorian era serialized gothic horror story by James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest. It first appeared in 1845–47 as a series of cheap pamphlets of the kind then known as "penny dreadfuls". The story was published in book form in 1847. It is of epic length: the original edition ran to 876 double-columned pages divided into 220 chapters. Altogether it totals nearly 667,000 words. Despite its inconsistencies, Varney the Vampire is more or less a cohesive whole. It is the tale of the vampire Sir Francis Varney, and introduced many of the tropes present in vampire fiction recognizable to modern audiences. Thomas Peckett Prest - Thomas Peckett (or Preskett) Prest (probable dates 1810–1859) was a British hack writer, journalist and musician. He was a prolific producer of penny dreadfuls. He is now remembered as the co-creator (with James Malcolm Rymer) of the fictional Sweeney Todd, the 'demon barber' immortalized in his The String of Pearls, as well as the co-author with Rymer of Varney the Vampire. He wrote under pseudonyms including Bos, a takeoff of Charles Dickens' own pen name, Boz. Before joining Edward Lloyd's publishing factory, Prest had made a name for himself as a talented musician and composer.