Where to find it: It's long out of copyright and can be found on the web for free - Gutenberg has the first arc available, just for one.
What is it, in summary? Varney the Vampire is an absurdly overlong gothic vampire novel, predating Dracula by around 50 years, originally published in Penny Dreadful format - ie. serialised chapter-by-chapter, by writers who were being paid-by-the-word to churn out cheap, sensationalist dreck for a mass audience. What made it to press was unedited and shamelessly padded with filler to almost unreadable levels. Worse, no proper abridged version of Varney exists - which is a crying shame, because when Varney is good, it is amazing, and even when it's bad, it's often hilarious.
What do you like about it? For some context, the main saga deals with the trials of Bannerworth family - some of the stupidest people you will ever meet in fiction - who must contend with not only being accosted by the unthinkably horrifying spectre of a vampire, but the equally horrifying fear that the neighbours might find out. Inevitably, paranoia spreads, and the local village forms the most comically inept vampire-hunting mob imaginable - and yet somewhere along the line, Varney even gets most of the way through a redemption arc. There's a lot of drama about real-estate, possibly-hidden-treasure, and this one damn painting they still haven't managed to get off the wall nearly a hundred chapters later. Not all the hilarity is intentional, but there's a lot of hilarity to be found.
But the real joy of Varney the Vampire is Varney himself - a horrifying monster who will climb in through windows at night and pin some maiden with his metallic gaze, only to be shot multiple times on every attack and spend a hilariously long sequence repeatedly failing to get over a wall. Varney will variously angst at length about his undead condition, snark aloud and openly troll his enemies, and generally run rings around the Bannerworths - at least up until someone reaches for a firearm. Varney's hardly clever, but with enemies like these, who needs friends anyway?
In all seriousness, the only real way to read Varney involves a horrifying amount of skimming repetitive filler to get to the next actual plot-point, everyone is stupid and nothing makes sense - and yet, there are some real diamonds to be found in all that muck. It's criminal it's not better remembered today.
What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: Crack. Varney already reads like a parody of itself half the time, and all it needs is for someone to trim a bit of the excess and turn everything up to 11. Something in an Importance-of-being-Earnest-style comedy of manners could work so well with this canon.
I mean, I'd especially love anyone willing to write something that delves into the bizarre semi-romance of Varney with BOTH Flora Bannerworth and her fiance Charles - but this is as Yuletide-worthy as canons get, and just about anything will make me happy.
Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: Well, the Bannerworth saga is technically only the first 100k or so... but honestly, there's no easy way to read Varney, and the best I can say is that no-one, least of all me, expects anyone to pour through this thing word by word. There are some decent chapter-breakdown summaries that'll give you a decent idea where the important stuff happens, but in the absense of a proper abridged version, it is what it is.
no subject
Varney the Vampire
Media:
Novel
Approx length:
Too long
Where to find it:
It's long out of copyright and can be found on the web for free - Gutenberg has the first arc available, just for one.
What is it, in summary?
Varney the Vampire is an absurdly overlong gothic vampire novel, predating Dracula by around 50 years, originally published in Penny Dreadful format - ie. serialised chapter-by-chapter, by writers who were being paid-by-the-word to churn out cheap, sensationalist dreck for a mass audience. What made it to press was unedited and shamelessly padded with filler to almost unreadable levels. Worse, no proper abridged version of Varney exists - which is a crying shame, because when Varney is good, it is amazing, and even when it's bad, it's often hilarious.
What do you like about it?
For some context, the main saga deals with the trials of Bannerworth family - some of the stupidest people you will ever meet in fiction - who must contend with not only being accosted by the unthinkably horrifying spectre of a vampire, but the equally horrifying fear that the neighbours might find out. Inevitably, paranoia spreads, and the local village forms the most comically inept vampire-hunting mob imaginable - and yet somewhere along the line, Varney even gets most of the way through a redemption arc. There's a lot of drama about real-estate, possibly-hidden-treasure, and this one damn painting they still haven't managed to get off the wall nearly a hundred chapters later. Not all the hilarity is intentional, but there's a lot of hilarity to be found.
But the real joy of Varney the Vampire is Varney himself - a horrifying monster who will climb in through windows at night and pin some maiden with his metallic gaze, only to be shot multiple times on every attack and spend a hilariously long sequence repeatedly failing to get over a wall. Varney will variously angst at length about his undead condition, snark aloud and openly troll his enemies, and generally run rings around the Bannerworths - at least up until someone reaches for a firearm. Varney's hardly clever, but with enemies like these, who needs friends anyway?
In all seriousness, the only real way to read Varney involves a horrifying amount of skimming repetitive filler to get to the next actual plot-point, everyone is stupid and nothing makes sense - and yet, there are some real diamonds to be found in all that muck. It's criminal it's not better remembered today.
What sort of things are you likely to request for it?:
Crack. Varney already reads like a parody of itself half the time, and all it needs is for someone to trim a bit of the excess and turn everything up to 11. Something in an Importance-of-being-Earnest-style comedy of manners could work so well with this canon.
I mean, I'd especially love anyone willing to write something that delves into the bizarre semi-romance of Varney with BOTH Flora Bannerworth and her fiance Charles - but this is as Yuletide-worthy as canons get, and just about anything will make me happy.
Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?:
Well, the Bannerworth saga is technically only the first 100k or so... but honestly, there's no easy way to read Varney, and the best I can say is that no-one, least of all me, expects anyone to pour through this thing word by word. There are some decent chapter-breakdown summaries that'll give you a decent idea where the important stuff happens, but in the absense of a proper abridged version, it is what it is.