Varney the Vampire (Publication cover) Playing Cards

The cover page from a reprint of the British penny dreadful series Varney the Vampire (1845). Varney the Vampire; or, the Feast of Blood is a Victorian-era serialised 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, 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 and 232 chapters. Altogether it totals nearly 667,000 words.