Varney the Vampyre Analysis
Varney the Vampyre by James Malcolm Rymer is a very early vampire story that predates Bram Stoker's Dracula by 50 years (Dracula n.p.). James Malcolm Rymer was apparently the given name for a writer of many popular novels and stories in London in the 1840s through the 1860s. He wrote and published works under many names however, but one of his specialties was novels and stories about the supernatural, horror, and terror. He was a “hack” writer, meaning that he wrote voluminously on many subjects for popular publications. “Hack” is generally defined as “a mediocre and disdained writer” (“Hack ...