Varney the Vampire

Setting

The story has a confused setting. While ostensibly set in the early eighteenth century, there are references to the Napoleonic Wars and other indicators that the story is contemporary to the time of its writing in the mid-nineteenth century. Varney's adventures also occur in various locations including London, Bath, Winchester, Naples and Venice.

Human characters

The plot concerns the troubles that Sir Francis Varney inflicts upon the Bannerworths, a formerly wealthy family driven to ruin by their recently deceased father. Initially the Bannerworths consist of Mrs. Bannerworth and her adult children Henry, George and Flora. (George is never mentioned after the thirty-sixth chapter.) A family friend, Mr. Marchdale, lives with the Bannerworths in early chapters. Later, Flora's fiancé Charles Holland, his seafaring uncle Admiral Bell, and Bell's jovial assistant Jack Pringle also take residence with the Bannerworths.

The character of Varney

Though the earliest chapters give the standard motives of blood sustenance for Varney's actions toward the family, later ones suggest that Varney is motivated by monetary interests. The story is at times inconsistent and confusing, as if the author did not know whether to make Varney a literal vampire or simply a human who acts like one. Varney bears a strong resemblance to a portrait in Bannerworth Hall, and the implication throughout is that he is actually Marmaduke Bannerworth (or Sir Runnagate Bannerworth; the names are confused throughout the story), but that connection is never clarified. He is portrayed as loathing his condition, and at one point he turns Clara Crofton, a member of another family he terrorizes, into a vampire for revenge.

Over the course of the book, Varney is presented with increasing sympathy as a victim of circumstances. He tries to save himself, but is unable to do so. He ultimately commits suicide by throwing himself into Mount Vesuvius, after having left a written account of his origin with a sympathetic priest. According to Varney, he was cursed with vampirism after he betrayed a royalist to Oliver Cromwell, and subsequently killed his own son accidentally in a fit of anger. He "dies" and is revived several times in the course of his career. This afforded the author a variety of origin stories. In one of these, a medical student named Dr. Chillingworth applies galvanism to Varney's hanged corpse and revives him. This sub-plot parallels the earlier story of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and film adaptations which introduce electricity as Dr. Frankenstein's means of creating the monster.

Legacy

Scholars like A. Asbjørn Jøn have noted that Varney was a major influence on later vampire fiction, including the renowned novel Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker. Many of today's standard vampire tropes originated in Varney: Varney has fangs, leaves two puncture wounds on the necks of his victims, has hypnotic powers, and has superhuman strength. Unlike later fictional vampires, he is able to go about in daylight and has no particular fear of either crosses or garlic. He can eat and drink in human fashion as a form of disguise, but he points out that human food and drink do not agree with him. His vampirism seems to be a fit that comes on him when his vital energy begins to run low; he is a regular, normally functioning person between feedings.

This is also the first example of the "sympathetic vampire," a vampire who despises his condition but is nonetheless a slave to it. This archetype has been widely exemplified, notably by such characters as Countess Zaleska in the 1936 film Dracula's Daughter, Barnabas Collins in the TV soap opera Dark Shadows, Mick St. John in the TV show Moonlight, Louis de Pointe du Lac in Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, Kain in the Legacy Of Kain video games, Marvel Comics character Morbius, the Living Vampire, Nick Knight in the TV series Forever Knight, Angel from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe, and Bill Compton in Charlaine Harris' The Southern Vampire Mysteries.

The makers of Marvel Comics were also influenced by this story. In the Marvel Universe, "Varnae" is the name of the first vampire, created by the people of Atlantis before it sank.

The sole member of the German darkwave band Sopor Aeternus & The Ensemble of Shadows, Anna-Varney Cantodea, adopted her name from Varney the vampire.

The Shadow magazine story "The Vampire Murders" published in 1942 features "Varney Haldrew" who lives in Haldrew Hall. Varney is named after the original Varney the Vampire and spends his nights sleeping in a coffin.

Varney appears in an episode of the Canadian television show Dracula: The Series, played by Sam Malkin. He appears in the episode "Bad Blood", and treats Dracula after he is poisoned by a rare blood type.

Sir Francis Varney is the Viceroy of India in Kim Newman's Anno Dracula.

In the sixth episode of the TV series Penny Dreadful (2014), Abraham Van Helsing gives a copy of Varney the Vampire to Victor Frankenstein, explaining that the story is more truth than fiction and that the mysterious creature the series' characters are pursuing is a vampire.