#flora bannerworth

[antiquesfreaks]

Flora Bannerworth: I’m a moronosexual. I’m attracted to dumbasses and dumbasses exclusively. Charles once asked me who the main characters in Romeo and Juliet were and now I dream of kissing him under the moonlight.

Charles Holland: hey flora!! what kind of animal is a pink panther??

Flora, already taking her clothes off: Goddammit, Charles. You’re so fucking stupid.

#varney the vampire #charles holland #flora bannerworth #varney #vampire #vampires #dracula #penny dreadful

[cleolinda]

Varney the Vampire: Chapter 1

[I originally posted a shorter recap of this chapter on Livejournal, on December 7, 2010. If you'd like to just read the original, less serious version of the recap, that's here.]

[Content note: I'll talk about this a bit later, but, heads up: this opening chapter describes an assault that’s more vivid than I remembered. That's the second half of the recap.]

I'm not actually going to rewrite all my Varney posts like this, but I'd like to talk not just about the way James Malcolm Rymer wrote the chapter, but also the way I recapped it 12+ years ago.

First off, I don't think I gave Rymer enough credit for the atmosphere of the opening; maybe I just appreciate it more after struggling through some of the filler chapters. I did give him some credit, noting that there are 900 words of gothic effectiveness before anything actually happens—I'll quote the very beginning at some length so you can get a feel for what the next 230+ chapters are like:

The solemn tones of an old cathedral clock have announced midnight -- the air is thick and heavy -- a strange, death-like stillness pervades all nature. Like the ominous calm which precedes some more than usually terrific outbreak of the elements, they seem to have paused even in their ordinary fluctuations, to gather a terrific strength for the great effort. A faint peal of thunder now comes from far off. Like a signal gun for the battle of the winds to begin, it appeared to awaken them from their lethargy, and one awful, warring hurricane swept over a whole city, producing more devastation in the four or five minutes it lasted, than would a half century of ordinary phenomena.

It was as if some giant had blown upon some toy town, and scattered many of the buildings before the hot blast of his terrific breath; for as suddenly as that blast of wind had come did it cease, and all was as still and calm as before.

Sleepers awakened, and thought that what they had heard must be the confused chimera of a dream. They trembled and turned to sleep again.

I summarized this as:

The lightning! The thunder! Ominous calm! The buildings scatter like toy houses! O THE STORMY STORMINESS OF THE STORM. And then the hail starts up, at which point I started laughing, because… hail. Sexy, sexy, stormy hail. Oh the hailiness of the hail, the stormy sexy chunks of ice hailing on your head, yea, unto a mild concussion. In conclusion: hail.

I had some interesting expectations here about gothic atmosphere, or perhaps just the vampire genre itself, necessarily being "sexy." You do see some eroticism in a vampire story like "La Morte amoreuse" (1836), but—remember how I mentioned the cottage industry built on Polidori's "The Vampyre," which ultimately results in Varney the Vampire as a sort of parody? There's no Erotic Biting in any of that. Biting of any nature happens off-page in "The Vampyre," and to my knowledge, Ruthven doesn't manage to bite anyone in spinoffs like The Bride of the Isles. At the time Varney was first published (1845-1847), I don't know if people were expecting scenes like—well, what's about to happen next.

Enter Flora:

And now we meet Our Heroine, Flora Bannerworth, an aptly-named maiden who is "young and beautiful as a spring morning," bare shoulder, sculpted ivory bosom, teeth of pearl, moaning in her sleep, a flood of loosed tresses, so on and so forth. Wind, rain, sexy hail, 600 words, FLASH OF LIGHTNING! SHRIEK!

Okay, I clearly expected the heroine to be eroticized, and I was at least right about that:

The bed in that old chamber is occupied. A creature formed in all fashions of loveliness lies in a half sleep upon that ancient couch -- a girl young and beautiful as a spring morning. Her long hair has escaped from its confinement and streams over the blackened coverings of the bedstead; she has been restless in her sleep, for the clothing of the bed is in much confusion. One arm is over her head, the other hangs nearly off the side of the bed near to which she lies. A neck and bosom that would have formed a study for the rarest sculptor that ever Providence gave genius to, were half disclosed. [...]

Oh, what a world of witchery was in that mouth, slightly parted, and exhibiting within the pearly teeth that glistened even in the faint light that came from that bay window. How sweetly the long silken eyelashes lay upon the cheek. Now she moves, and one shoulder is entirely visible -- whiter, fairer than the spotless clothing of the bed on which she lies, is the smooth skin of that fair creature, just budding into womanhood, and in that transition state which presents to us all the charms of the girl -- almost of the child, with the more matured beauty and gentleness of advancing years.

Y'all.

I had read a lot of Victorian literature by 2010—took graduate classes, even—and was too jaded to be as fazed by this quasi-Lolita mess as I maybe should have been. I remember reading this and thinking, "Yeah, that's standard. Goes on a bit, though."

Having established Flora Bannerworth, Victorian Lolita (she's the only person with any sense for several chapters, don't hold it against her), the story starts to ramp up. Flora sees "a figure tall and gaunt, endeavouring from the outside to unclasp the window" in the next flash of lightning. She's not sure what she really saw; it turns out that the literary point of the hail is that she can't tell if the sound she's hearing is ice raining down on her gothic mansion or vampire fingernails trying to claw the window open. And like, who thinks "Obviously, a vampire is trying to get in"? She saw it so clearly, and yet, storm, darkness, hail, she could just as easily explain it away—how did Ann Radcliffe differentiate terror from horror? Basically, terror is the dreadful lead-up and horror is the shocking revelation? So we switch here from the horror of OH SHIT VAMPIRE AT THE WINDOW back to the dread of waiting to find out what it really was.

Around this point in the original post, I pointed out that there are four elements you might see in a vampire story: the Appearance of the Vampire; the Attack of the Vampire; the Victim's Consumptive Suffering; and the eventual Destruction of the Vampire. You see these pretty reliably in Dracula, for example; you see them subverted in Interview with the Vampire, where the vampire is eventually destroyed by fellow vampires, but then it turns out he wasn't, and he goes on to be vampire king and see Jesus and mess around with the Devil and Atlantis is involved, idk I didn't keep up with those books after the one with the body-thieving. In this particular chapter of Varney, we get the first two elements, and they are honestly very effective: "Frozen with horror!" I said. "Heart beating wildly! The strange reddish light from a burning mill in the distance! The vampyre's nails clattering against the glass as it seeks to open the latch! She tries to scream but cannot to move, but cannot! Her cries for help are but hoarse whispers that no one can hear!" And then:

(I want you to remember Lord Ruthven's "dead grey eyes" here:)

The figure turns half round, and the light falls upon its face. It is perfectly white perfectly bloodless. The eyes look like polished tin; the lips are drawn back, and the principal feature next to those dreadful eyes is the teeth the fearful looking teeth projecting like those of some wild animal, hideously, glaringly white, and fang-like.

(Sidebar: This is apparently the first appearance of the word "fang" in vampire literature.)

It approaches the bed with a strange, gliding movement. It clashes together the long nails that literally appear to hang from the finger ends. No sound comes from its lips. [...] The glance of a serpent could not have produced a greater effect upon her than did the fixed gaze of those awful, metallic-looking eyes that were bent down on her face. Crouching down so that the gigantic height was lost, and the horrible, protruding white face was the most prominent object, came on the figure. What was it? what did it want there? what made it look so hideous so unlike an inhabitant of the earth, and yet be on it?

Here I am, making a very good point while being gleefully insensitive:

Panting, repulsion, heaving bosoms, etc. And then begins the slow agony of Flora oozing across the bed in her attempt to escape. Hair streaming (slowly) across the pillows, covers dragging (slowly) behind her, until she gets one foot (slowly) onto the floor. This is one of the few times the paid-per-word aspect works in Varney's favor—it has the endless creep of a nightmare, so let's take a moment to bask in a brief ray of quality. Undaunted by effective writing, the vampyre reaches her and drags her by the hair back onto the bed; "Heaven granted her then power" to scream her head off. And thus follows the most awesome sentence I have yet seen in gothic literature:

With a plunge he seizes her neck in his fang-like teeth a gush of blood, and a hideous sucking noise follows. The girl has swooned, and the vampyre is at his hideous repast!

My Hideous Repast is totally the name of my new goth band.

And that was the end of my commentary on the chapter.

I'm torn here because I do think the writing in general is entertainingly overblown, and I do think "my hideous repast" is funny in the abstract. But what I don't understand—not to bring the room down, but I feel like it should be pointed out: when I started recapping Varney the Vampire back in 2010, I completely missed the fact that this opening scene is describing a sexual(ized) assault. Some readers might be really, really uncomfortable with this scene. Why did I not see this?

I came here to have fun and that would not have been fun?

I was approaching the serial from the assumption that it's silly and melodramatic, so anything that happened also would be?

This cover illustration did not exactly set me up to take it seriously?

I was so used to the ravishment fantasies of gothic/vampire media that it didn't strike me as something unpleasant or unusual to read?

It was 2010 and we didn't necessarily question problematic angles as thoroughly as we do now, even though I was already critiquing Twilight in 2008 so that's kind of a bullshit excuse?

I still think the melodramatic writing is pretty funny in places and I'm not sure how I feel about myself for that?

I think at least some of my reaction actually does come from writing about Twilight from 2008 onwards. It was a vampire story that had a marked lack of Erotic Biting scenes, to the point where director Catherine Hardwicke had to add one to the movie: Bella's fainting-couch fantasy of Edward as a classically gothic vampire, which apparently involves shoe-polish hair.

The mood 15 years ago (!) was, some people loved a twinkling repressed sparklepire insisting he mustn't touch his high-school ladylove, he mustn't! but he must!!, and other people were big mad about it. Reading Varney, it felt refreshing to go back to a "traditional" story and say, see, there is bloodshed and it's not sparklewashed and tame, that is what real vampiring looks like. And somewhere along the way, I think I lost sight of the fact that Twilight, for all its many faults, at least involves someone who enthusiastically consents to being bitten. Like, Bella as would-be victim consents when Edward doesn't; the big tension of the series is that Bella is always throwing herself at a hungry vampire who keeps running away from her.

Hey, you might say, in the midst of a cultural moment when everyone’s going wild over the bizarrely chaste story of a teenage girl and her guilt-ridden goody-two-shoes vampire boyfriend,

remember when vampires were actually scary and forced themselves on their victims?

wait what do you mean that's not great

By “not great,” I don’t mean that vampire villains are Problematic™ and should be banned from fiction. I'm saying, that's the point, that it's villainous to force a vampire bite on someone; that's what the horror of the situation is about. That said, one of the unique holds that vampires have on audiences is the moment when “force” becomes ambiguous—ambiguous for the characters, but when we consent, as readers and viewers, to seek out that ambiguity. Like, I’m here for vampires because of that, the psychodrama is the whole point for me; it’s not because I like watching people get chewed on. That ambiguity holds an audience-proxy tension between “I don’t want this” and “but I do want this.”

Case in point, Dracula attacking Mina in the original text: Mina is horrified to find that she’s compelled to submit despite herself (“strangely enough, I did not want to hinder him”), although that scene is heavily weighted towards “I don’t want this”—towards horror. A story like “Carmilla” has Laura feeling confused, conflicted, unsure of what’s even been happening behind the veil of her dreams: Do I want this? What am I even wanting? “Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced in it”: more of a balance between want and not-want. Whereas Bella immediately wants to be bitten, end of, and spends three books chasing a vampire who is agog at how little she cares for her own life. It's... some kind of tension, for sure.

Thousands of words have been written about how this tension is tied to societal sexual repression, of course. And as the decades went on, as sexual mores loosened throughout the twentieth century and beyond, writers and filmmakers started saying, “Oh, the vampire’s bite is enjoyable and it doesn’t turn you immediately into a vampire, have fun.” (The U.S. seems to be moving politically back towards repression, which makes me wonder how vampire media might change soon.) And this is why Twilight feels like a metaphor for literal chastity: there are immediate consequences for being so much as nicked by a fang, and so all the eroticism is dialed down to teenage makeouts.

And so, in 2010, I was so busy enjoying the literary contrast between Twilight and a book where vampires actually bite people that I lost sight of the fact that what happens to Flora is a particularly cruel and vivid assault. I mean, getting dragged by her hair, Jesus Christ, why was I not more disturbed by that?

What this then makes me ask, though, is how did readers in 1847 take this?

Who was this written for?

Readers who would identify most with Varney—attacking Flora, which is awful, but the action as written is extremely callous?

Readers who would identify most with Flora—being attacked, which suggests a "horror is a safe roller coaster" framing?

Readers who wouldn't really identify with either of them, but instead might picture it as a stage play?

Given that Polidori's Lord Ruthven set off a "vampire craze" onstage, I lean towards the third option. It takes a certain bystander detachment to read this scene and not think of its reality—to empathize—at all. And my "lmao this is so silly" is, in fact, a form of detachment. But all three of those options are possible, all at once.

So: is this opening chapter intended to be funny? (Subsequent chapters are far more intentionally humorous, and I had doubled back to recap this after reading ahead.) Are we meant to laugh, or is the outdated style only unintentionally funny now?

Is it satirizing earlier vampire literature/theater on purpose?

Is humor a way of making it easier to read a scene like this?

Is it not a good thing, really to make a scene of assault "easier to read"?

Did I, a reader who would identify with Flora, need it to be easier to read?

Is it okay to have multiple, conflicting reactions to something?

The only answer I have is "Yes," to that last question. And the only thing I know to do with conflicting feelings about media is to accept them and say, as a data point: here they are. There’s a level to this first chapter that I completely did not grasp 12-13 years ago, when I was 30+ entire years old, and I'm still not sure why that is.

I do think Varney the Vampire is frequently pretty funny; weirdly, the subsequent chapters read like a parody of Dracula if everyone in Dracula except one (1) heroine was completely useless, 50 years before that book was even written. Flora might be the victim in this chapter, but she is not the butt of the jokes. But I guess what we need to think about is—if this book is meant to be parody, why is it funny, who is it making fun of at any given point, and what purpose does that serve?

At this point, the antiquated style is what’s funny to me, and I’m making fun of Rymer. Did Rymer intend his readers to find the opening chapter funny? Maybe not: I think he intended it, certainly, to be titillating, even exploitative—and I was aware of that, but maybe not enough.

We'll resume with Varney trying to get over a garden wall. It will be a shorter, lighter post.

#varney the vampire #vampires #vampire studies #welcome to hell it's my blog #long post

[hrcbtga]

Penny Dreadfuls

Penny Dreadfuls were 19th century Victorian publishing phenomenons, consisting of 8-16 pages of black and white illustrations on the top half of the front page which was often an essential element of drawing the reader in, as shown in the image above of Varney the Vampire that was extremely popular during the time.

Consisting of different writers to create varying content, the stories were designed to hook the reader in immediately. Plots were complex, often with over the top violence and visceral imagery using familiar settings. Publishers would play on the audience's reactions to the stories, running them longer if they proved to be popular. Penny Dreadfuls essentially attracted young men of the working class, often full of contempt for authority and romanticised vice. It provided escapism, adventure, romance and gore at an affordable price for the public, they were created to be affordable and had less detail in illustrations to be as cheap as possible so that the lower class could afford to buy them.

Varney the vampire (image at the top of post) used irregular shaped black and white blocks to create a more sophisticated design in their illustrations. Predating Bram Stoker's Dracula, Varney was created by James Malcom Rymer, the first edition running from 1845-46 and was described by the author as a romance.

Varney himself was described as "The tall, gaunt form, with faded ancient apparel", with "lusterous metallic-looking eyes, its half-opened mouth exhibiting the tusk like teeth". Other characters in the story include; Flora Bannerworth, her brother Henry, along with secondary characters such as Mr Marchdale and Charles Holland.

The story itself consisted of very, very lengthy descriptions as the writer was paid 'by the line' for his work, so he added as many lines as he could muster.

Sweeny Todd.

Sweeny Todd first appeared in the serial 'The String of Pearls' (1846-1847). In the original tale, Todd is a barber from Fleet Street who murders his customers with a straight razor and hands the corpses to his accomplice, Mrs Lovett, who makes them into food.

The trailer seems to suggest to me that this barber let a normal life until it was ruined by somebody that took his wife and child away from him and banished him from the place he was living in. He then becomes a barber and hides away for a chance to get back at the person that ruined his life and reclaim his wife and child. Along the way he seems to meet some black haired woman that he seems to have some sort of relationship with as we see a scene of them kissing.

#Youtube

[guardevoir]

For all its many, many shortcomings, Varney does feature an occasionally pretty badass young woman who shoots a goddamned vampire. Not that it actually does anything in the long term, but it does scare him off. Also, it’s badass. 

She later rejects him multiple times (which he’s surprisingly cool with, given that he’s The Immoral Monster (TM)), saves his life twice later on, and then gets out of the entire ordeal unharmed - and pretty much by her own merit, too, because her family is useless as shit.

#guardy talks about stuff #Flora Bannerworth is a badass #by 19th century penny dreadful standards but GOOD ENOUGH

[0bfvscate]

Varney The Vampire Canon as Understood by the Antiques Freaks Patreon Exclusives:

Jack and Admiral Bell are gay married

Flora Bannerworth is her generation's Slayer but can't hear her calling because, as an upper class British woman, she lacks two braincells to rub together

Mister Chillingworth doesn't want there to be a vampire panic because he has been stealing bodies out of the cemetery for years

A vampire is a type of fish

The dead butcher is gay and also a vampire

The dead gay butcher returned just long enough to turn his boyfriend and possibly their adopted son. Either way, they are all living their best life in the next town over.

Sir Frances Varney doesn't have any special vampire abilities except leaving a bad situation so fast he can cut a perfect outline of himself in a building's outer wall

George Bannerworth slept through the Bannerworth's evacuation of their house and now lives like Kevin in Home Alone in the abandoned wing of the hall

Sir Frances is actually kind of hot

Let me know if I missed any

#antiques freaks #podcast #varney the vampire #varney the vampyre

[cleolinda]

Varney the Vampire: Chapter 6

Chapter 5: Please, be responsible with your vampires.

Chapter 6: Originally posted on Livejournal on December 14, 2010. The original one was a bit short, so this has been expanded.

Previously on:

"Be of better cheer, Henry -- be of better cheer," said Marchdale; "there is one circumstance which we ought to consider, it is that, from all we have seen, there seems to be some things which would favour an opinion, Henry, that your ancestor, whose portrait hangs in the chamber which was occupied by Flora, is a vampyre."

Also:

Henry related to George what had taken place outside the house, and the two brothers held a long and interesting conversation for some hours upon that subject, as well as upon others of great importance to their welfare. It was not until the sun's early rays came glaring in at the casement that they both rose, and thought of awakening Flora, who had now slept soundly for so many hours.

I am stunned that this fascinating conversation was not given three chapters of its own. The printer must have put his foot down and said, "I can pay you by the line, not the ton."

CHAPTER VI.

A GLANCE AT THE BANNERWORTH FAMILY. -- THE PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE MYSTERIOUS APPARITION'S APPEARANCE.

Rymer trusts that it would not be unideal to acquaint us further with the Beaumont Bannerworth family. Short version: previous heads of the Bannerworth family were a bunch of hell-raisin' runnagate gamblers, and thus noble Henry and his family are now quietly penniless. We are told that his father, Marmaduke Bannerworth, Oh Why Not the Second, was "found lying dead" (of what: not specified. sus? absolutely) in the garden, with only an unfinished message written in pencil:

"The money is -- -- " And then there was a long scrawl of the pencil, which seemed to have been occasioned by his sudden decease.

Of course there was. To ramp up the foreshadowing that James Malcolm Rymer might never, ever follow up on, we're also told,

He had, but a few hours before he was found lying dead, made the following singular speech to Henry, -- "Do not regret, Henry, that the old house which has been in our family so long is about to be parted with. Be assured that, if it is but for the first time in my life, I have good and substantial reasons now for what I am about to do. We shall be able to go to some other country, and there live like princes of the land." Where the means were to come from to live like a prince, unless Mr. Bannerworth had some of the German princes in his eye, no one knew but himself, and his sudden death buried with him that most important secret.

Henry, of course, never gets to find out wtf this means. Not entirely sure what the drive-by snark at German princes is about, either. (At this point, the German Confederation was still a few short years away from the Revolutions of 1848. A Regent's Council was ruling Austria for Ferdinand I, who served as a de facto president of the Confederation; the whole thing was decentralized, "weak and ineffective," and so I'm guessing individual princes had a good bit of money and power? I have no idea what this has to do with Marmaduke II's plans.)

So the current Bannerworths, they are broke. And then, suddenly, Random J. Solicitor, Esq., from London writes them to say, "Look, I have this client. I can't tell you who it is, but he'll pay you a shitload of money for the Hall." The Bannerworths want to hold onto the ancestral hall, mortgages and debts and all. "No, seriously. Anything you want." Even the Bannerworths' own lawyer is like, SERIOUSLY, WHY WON'T YOU TAKE THE MONEY? Well, because it's their ancestral family home, and also… there's this guy who likes Flora, and they want to make sure he can drop in on them someday. Because, if they move, they have no way of letting him know.

Now, in 2010, I wrote rather dryly, "I don't know how we survived before Facebook, you guys." The subtext here was, I already hated Facebook and used it, like, twice in my whole life, mostly as a mobile game login. Obviously, this statement hits different in 2023; I'm not sure we'll survive anyway, but this is the gag I wrote 12-13 years ago, and I stand by it:

Flora Bannerworth thinks that Italy is beautiful this time of year

Flora Bannerworth is GOING OVER A CLIFF O NOES!!2!

Charles Holland is saving some random girl he's never met before from certain death-----

Henry Bannerworth likes this-----

George Bannerworth likes this-----

Mrs. Bannerworth likes this

Henry Bannerworth has invited Charles Holland to join The Quietly Penniless Bannerworth Family

And thus, 620 words later, we are introduced to Charles Holland, Artist by Profession, Traveling for Instruction and Amusement, Loved by Everyone (But Especially Flora). Literally, he saved her from a terrific stormy abyss, into which she nearly damseled into off a cliff, and surely would have perished thereunto. Charles Holland then had Somewhere Else to Be for two years—but when he gets done with Something, at Someplace with No Address, he will absolutely come back and look Flora up at Bannerworth Hall! So we definitely cannot move, y'all.

With one exception this was the state of affairs at the hall, and that exception relates to Mr. Marchdale.

Ah: Mrs. Bannerworth's childhood sweetheart, failed suitor, and "distant relative"—shoulda been her cousin, Marchdale, you would've had a far better chance. While we're here, I should tell you my theory about why so many heroines in nineteenth century literature end up marrying their cousins. (An unparalleled example: Louisa May Alcott's Eight Cousins and its sequel Rose in Bloom, in which the Campbell family waits breathlessly to see which of a HERD of male cousins young heiress Rose will marry. She chooses the nerd.) I think it's because cousins were allowed to interact like siblings—that is, like friends—whereas mere acquaintances were held apart from young women by a certain degree of convention and propriety. Courtship was often ridiculously formal, particularly as the century wore on. So, for a writer, it would be really appealing to have a male character in place that your heroine can even just be around, someone the reader can witness her having an emotional relationship with—not just a superficial introduction, then a perfunctory proposal. So it's far more narratively satisfying to go with "the cousin we've known for the entire book" instead of "cousin's random friend we saw three times." Even Charles Holland rapidly gets promoted to—well, we'll get to that.

Instead, Mrs. Bannerworth "had, as is generally the case among several admirers, chosen the very worst: that is, the man who had treated her with the most indifference and who paid her the least attention." Not to mention, a dissipated gambler. Good to see that, even back in the day, the Bad Boy Fallacy was already in effect.

So, after the Very Worst turned up dead in the garden, Marchdale renewed his attentions to his old flame and distant relative, the Widow Bannerworth:

It might have been some slight tenderness towards him which had never left her, or it might be the pleasure merely of seeing one whom she had known intimately in early life, but, be that as it may, she certainly gave him a kindly welcome; and he, after consenting to remain for some time as a visitor at the hall, won the esteem of the whole family by his frank demeanour and cultivated intellect.

Marchdale (we are told) is well-traveled, courteous, spins a good yarn on a dull 1840s night, and has "a small [financial] independence of his own," so he's actually better off than the family hosting him, and finds ways to support them. This is the Bannerworth household, all told, and they're making it work. Sometimes a family is a widow, her three adult children, her cousin-suitor, and his crowbar.

Such then may be considered by our readers as a brief outline of the state of affairs among the Bannerworths -- a state which was pregnant with changes, and which changes were now likely to be rapid and conclusive. How far the feelings of the family towards the ancient house of their race would be altered by the appearance at it of so fearful a visitor as a vampyre, we will not stop to inquire, inasmuch as such feelings will develop themselves as we proceed.

Well—wait. What? "Altered by the appearance at it of"? What the hell is this? God, it's like the literary equivalent of a speed bump. Anyway: all the servants promptly quit. Sorry—the feelings of the domestics inasmuch as the domestics could afford to have feelings were inevitably altered towards the desirability of the wages paid thereunto by the appearance of a fucking vampire. Ugh. Nobody wants to work these days.

(Chapter 7 will go up Friday, March 31.)

#varney the vampire #vampires #recaps #long post #vampire studies

[cleolinda]

Varney the Vampire - chapter 2

Chapter 1: A completely different, much longer approach to the first recap.

Chapter 2: Honestly pretty much the same recap as before (Livejournal, December 7, 2010, in the same post as chapter 1), with some updating/revision.

Chapter II.

THE ALARM. -- THE PISTOL SHOT. -- THE PURSUIT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

So! Brought the room down a little last time! Oddly, the first chapter is this tour-de-force of Effective Gothic Atmosphere That Is Honestly Troubling If You Think About It, and then... the dialogue shows up. Welcome to the rest of Varney the Vampire!

Let's stop for a moment to introduce the rest of the family. ROLL CALL:

Henry Bannerworth: Flora's brother and the head of the family, which is broke and semi-disgraced. If you remember the recaps previously, he is the one who practically had to be carried home because vampire hunting is harrrrrrd;

George Bannerworth: Flora's other brother, who is "is of a highly susceptible nature and the very idea of [a vampyre] would kill him," and, indeed, he does get pretty panicked about it. He still has more gumption than Henry does;

Mrs. Bannerworth: Their widowed mother, who—as I originally phrased it, "screams and cries and faints a little, but doesn't ever do much else." This is, of course, the writer's choice—to have a character to wring her hands, and then push her aside to be "paralyzed" at a key moment rather than do anything interesting with her. You might look ahead to Lucy Westenra's mother and wonder if Stoker thought about this;

Mr. Marchdale: Mrs. Bannerworth's childhood friend (??) who lives with the Bannerworths, occasionally pitching in for groceries and stuff. I have a lot of questions about this setup and I can't remember if they were answered when I read ahead 10,000 years ago, but if I were writing this he would completely be Mrs. Bannerworth's live-in "friend"

And now we proceed to one of the key features of James Malcolm Rymer's writing, which is: real-time dialogue between the most excruciating people on earth. Rymer's gonna drive this penny dreadful like a slow cab and by God he's gonna keep the meter running. Did you hear a scream? I don't know, did you? I'm pretty sure I did or I wouldn't be asking? Yes, I think I heard a scream! Do you know where you heard the scream? It was so sudden that I cannot say! You guys, I think it came from FLORA'S ROOM! FLORA'S ROOM? YOU MEAN THE ROOM OF OUR SISTER? WHY YES I DO THINK SO! GET UP! I AM UP! DID YOU HEAR IT TOO? I SAY OLD CHAP I DO BELIEVE I DID! I am not even kidding. It's still going, in fact. DO YOU HEAR THE SCREAMS? THE SCREAMS, THEY SCREAM AGAIN! WHY YES I DO! CAN YOU DOUBT THEY ARE FLORA'S NOW? WHY I DO NOT BELIEVE I CAN! WE MUST SEARCH THE HOUSE! WHY, DO YOU NOT KNOW WHERE YOUR SISTER'S ROOM IS? WELL I'M JUST SAYING THAT MAYBE WE NEED TO BE THOROUGH ABOUT THIS! BUT I THOUGHT WE AGREED IT'S FLORA (WHO IS YOUR SISTER) WHO IS SCREAMING? So finally we get to Flora's room, but it is locked!! I will spare you the next umpteen pages of three grown men trying to conquer this one door, except to say that Marchdale runs off and gets his crowbar (what, you don't keep a crowbar in your bedroom?), and we start to make progress. Kind of.

"Another moment," said [Marchdale], as he still plied the crowbar -- "another moment, and we shall have free ingress to the chamber. Be patient." 

OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR, GODDAMN

Finally we get into Flora's room, where—and this will be important later—everyone sees

a figure, gigantic in height, which nearly reached from the floor to the ceiling. [...] Before it passed out they each and all caught a glance of the side-face, and they saw that the lower part of it and the lips were dabbled in blood. They saw, too, one of those fearful-looking, shining, metallic eyes which presented so terrible an appearance of unearthly ferocity.

And then, some 200 words later, Marchdale shoots the vampyre. BLESSINGS UNTO.

That face was one never to be forgotten. It was hideously flushed with colour -- the colour of fresh blood; the eyes had a savage and remarkable lustre whereas, before, they had looked like polished tin -- they now wore a ten times brighter aspect, and flashes of light seemed to dart from them. The mouth was open, as if, from the natural formation of the countenance, the lips receded much from the large canine looking teeth. A strange howling noise came from the throat of this monstrous figure, and it seemed upon the point of rushing upon Mr. Marchdale. Suddenly, then, as if some impulse had seized upon it, it uttered a wild and terrible shrieking kind of laugh; and then turning, dashed through the window, and in one instant disappeared from before the eyes of those who felt nearly annihilated by its fearful presence.

Well, it's no Angel Cupcake Marble Sparklepire, but I'll take it. (This is another feature of the 1800s vampire: they're only pale when they're hungry, and they actually get some human-looking color after feeding; as such, they can walk around pretty much undetected if the tank is full.) LET'S FOLLOW IT! NO DON'T! MOTHER, I MUST! NO, MY SON! YES! NO! YES!!! NO!!1! Blessedly, Flora's mother faints at this point, so that everyone can shut the hell up and chase the damn thing. And then we (eventually) get to the first part of the book that nearly made me cry laughing.

They looked in the direction he indicated. At the end of this vista was the wall of the garden. At that point it was full twelve feet in height, and as they looked, they saw the hideous, monstrous form they had traced from the chamber of their sister, making frantic efforts to clear the obstacle. They saw it bound from the ground to the top of the wall, which it very nearly reached, and then each time it fell back again into the garden with such a dull, heavy sound, that the earth seemed to shake again with the concussion. They trembled -- well indeed they might, and for some minutes they watched the figure making its fruitless efforts to leave the place.

I don't know why Varney can't get over the wall. It's not, like, a holy garlic wall or anything. All I know is, I nearly fell out of my chair at the image of this poor vampire desperately trying to jump over it, perhaps with a sad little grunt, and then falling on its ass... over and over and over.

(Chapter 3 will go up on Friday, March 17.)

#the chapter where he can't get over the wall #varney the vampire #vampires #long post #queue #recaps #vampire studies

[cleolinda]

Varney the Vampire: Chapter 16

Chapter 15: Our nephew can't marry some German vampyre!

PREVIOUSLY ON: We had a dance break to introduce two new comic-relief characters. But before that, Flora's sorta-fiancé that she met on the Continent and hadn't seen since showed up, and Flora's oldest brother started trying to warn him (Charles Holland) that since Flora has been bitten by a vampyre, he (Charles Holland) should not marry her. Flora said he should not marry her. The stalwart and faithful Charles Holland is not having any of that shit.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE MEETING OF THE LOVERS IN THE GARDEN. -- AN AFFECTING SCENE. -- THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF SIR FRANCIS VARNEY.

Or is he?

Our readers will recollect that Flora Bannerworth had made an appointment with Charles Holland in the garden of the hall. [...] The thought that he should be much urged by Flora to give up all thoughts of making her his, was a most bitter one to him, who loved her with so much truth and constancy, and that she would say all she could to induce such a resolution in his mind he felt certain. But to him the idea of now abandoning her presented itself in the worst of aspects.

Okay but. We just had like a chapter and a half of you swearing up and down that you'd never—

“Dare I be so base as actually or virtually to pad out out the word count say to her, 'Flora, when your beauty was undimmed by sorrow -- when all around you seemed life and joy, I loved you selfishly for the increased happiness which you might bestow upon me; but now the hand of misfortune presses heavily upon you -- you are not what you were, and I desert you?' Never -- never -- never!"

Atta boy.

James Malcolm Rymer decides to throw in that Charles Holland (if you are just joining us, I feel like you always have to say his full name. Rymer often does. It just feels right) "felt more acutely than he reasoned." I'm not sure if this is meant to be snarky or not; at least Rymer follows this up by lauding his "nobility of soul."

As for Flora, Heaven only knows if at that precise time her intellect had completely stood the test of the trying events which had nearly overwhelmed it.

On one hand, I get it: Flora's had a tough week. On the other hand, shut the fuck up, Rymer.

The two grand feelings that seemed to possess her mind were fear of the renewed visits of the vampyre, and an earnest desire to release Charles Holland from his repeated vows of constancy towards her.

She's still holding up better than her brother Henry, who was constantly wailing about how the horror of having a sister bitten by a vampyre ancestor is driving him maaaaad. Flora's intellect seems to be working perfectly fine, however, as she weighs her love for Charles Holland vs. the depth of his suffering: "To link him to her fate, would be to make him to a real extent a sharer in it."

In the sense that he might have to watch her be staked, and grieve her death?

In the sense that she might become a vampyre and come after her nearest and dearest (i.e., him) first, as vampires were folklorically said to do?

In the sense that she might bear… tainted children?!

[And] the more she [had] heard fall from his lips in the way of generous feelings of continued attachment to her, the more severely did she feel that he would suffer most acutely if united to her. And she was right.

But they were going to have a romantic rendezvous to talk this out, right? Charles is now waiting for her in Bannerworth Hall's [overdescribed] flower garden, secluded from the main building,

and in its centre was a summer-house, which at the usual season of the year was covered with all kinds of creeping plants of exquisite perfumes, and rare beauty. All around, too, bloomed the fairest and sweetest of flowers, which a rich soil and a sheltered situation could produce.

Honestly, I had a long discussion/comparison of Flora to Stoker's Lucy Westenra here, and I feel like it needs to go take a nap and come back some other time as a separate post. But suffice it to say, I think wealth is an important factor in how pleasantly "sheltered" these two characters are: not to take anything away from their sweetness and purity of heart (this is where I start going on about how misunderstood Lucy is), but they can afford to be sweet and lovely and naive, if you see what I'm saying (and this is more apparent in Dracula, in comparison to Mina, her level head, and her professional skills). As much as we need to point out that Rymer is romanticizing whiteness (figuratively and literally), I think we also have to consider that he's romanticizing wealth—class—by going on and on about a family estate with a large, "sheltered," professionally-tended garden.

Rymer continues this metaphor by saying that the "more estimable Flora floral culture" has declined,

for the decayed fortunes of the family had prevented them from keeping the necessary servants, to place the Hall and its grounds in a state of neatness, such as it had once been the pride of the inhabitants of the place to see them. It was then in this flower-garden that Charles and Flora used to meet.

I SAID, THAT SHE MET ON THE CONTINENT AND HASN'T SEEN SINCE

Nonetheless, Charles Holland has arrived early to this garden of lies. He is ready to romance. "Aníron" plays softly in the distance.

A light sound, as of some fairy footstep among the flowers, came upon his ears, and turning instantly to the direction from whence the sound proceeded, he saw what his heart had previously assured him of, namely that it was his Flora that was coming.

Alas, the flower that to his mind was fairer than them all, was blighted, and in the wan cheek of her whom he loved, he sighed to see the lily usurping the place of the radiant rose.

Yes, it was she; but, ah, how pale, how wan -- how languid and full of the evidences of much mental suffering was she. Where now was the elasticity of that youthful step? Where now was that lustrous beaming beauty of mirthfulness, which was wont to dawn in those eyes? Alas, all was changed. The exquisite beauty of form was there, but the light of joy which had lent its most transcendent charms to that heavenly face, was gone.

There's a reason Rymer goes to such lengths to (also; additionally; is there anything he doesn't) romanticize Flora's ill health:

While tuberculosis has been traced back thousands of years (and is still considered a pandemic), it wasn't named as such until 1834. And because it wasn't identified as a single disease until the 1820s, it was often thought to be vampirism: blood would appear on a patient's lips, people around them would also sicken and die, and so on. The colloquial name for tuberculosis (as you probably know) was consumption, even: being consumed by something unseen, unto death.

But as the Dead Maidens article up there points out, tuberculosis was glamorized among the upper class (not the only class who came down with it, mind you). Tuberculosis, as diseases go, had more dignity than dysentery and cholera, and happened to exaggerate what people already considered to be attractive:

[Early] symptoms seemed to heighten already established beauty standards of the time, and a wealthy young woman could waste away for years before the horrible end came. In the meantime, poor circulation turned fair complexions ghastly white. The blue veins and translucent fragile skin were treated as a crystalline delicacy. The constant low fever kept the cheeks and lips flushed with a rosy hue and the eyes wide and watery. Patients would waste away growing ethereally thin.

Chicken or egg: Did tuberculosis underline existing beauty ideals, or was it a matter of people glamorizing what they saw happening around them anyway? Yes, I think, is the answer to that.

Meanwhile, the contagion ramped up through the 1700s and 1800s, and when you combine this with the increase in both literacy and affordable publishing during the Industrial Revolution, you get the first era, the pre-Dracula era, of Western vampire literature, starting with Lenore (1773) and The Bride of Corinth (1797). (Which were published after the 1750s Austrian Vampire Problem we talked about last time.) Meanwhile, in 2023, I wrote a gigantic digression about heroes coddling heroines as validation for readers who feel unvalidated and beauty as virtue that I am straight-up going to have to cut out and maybe post separately, because this recap is already way too long.

ANYWAY, MY DEAR FLORA, said Charles Holland,

"remember that there are warm hearts that love you. Remember that neither time nor circumstance can change such endearing affection as mine. [...] Wherefore, Flora, would you still the voice of pure affection? I love you surely, as few have ever loved."

I love this shit. I absolutely love stories where Our Hero (Gender Neutral) tells me the Reader Proxy, for several paragraphs, that they love her/him/them heart and mind and body and soul for all time unto the heat death of the universe. LOVE. THAT. SHIT.

No, cries Flora! We mustn't! (But we MUST!) I will not quote all of this scene to you, but suffice it to say that they argue over how Charles Holland's entire face would shout his love if his tongue didn't happen to show up at the office that day. He is not just words! He is action! No, you mustn't! BUT I MUST! Love it.

Notice, though, how you must not is not I do not want you to. A lot of older romance writing either doesn't care about consent (I know a number of current romance writers who do, very much much so), or it stays sort of muddled and unclear as to how much a heroine is really into it. This may be either in the spirit of dubcon or honestly, because characters in an era when they weren't supposed to touch (Charles and Flora are actually pretty handsy. Waist action happens) are kind of pushing the envelope by talking too much about it at all. Flora may really be saying, "Charles Holland, we mustn't speak of love at such agonizing length in a wholesome publication!" ("I mean, is a pamphlet that wholesome, it's not a real newspaper or anything...") "Well, it has to be reasonably decent! I have to at least blush and avert my maidenly eyes every couple of sentences! We should probably talk about God watching us at some point!" ("Like... watching us...?") ("NO!!!")

"I must not now hear this. Great God of Heaven give me strength to carry out the purpose of my soul. […] Charles, I know I cannot reason with you. I know I have not power of language, aptitude of illustration, nor depth of thought to hold a mental contention with you."

POINTS:

Flora needing strength to carry out her purpose—refusing Charles Holland—underlines that this is something she does not, in fact, want to do. While Charles Holland's persistence might be functionally indistinguishable from Dude Who Won't Take No For An Answer, here in a fictional context, we're given cues that Charles understands correctly that Flora is only trying to break up with him For His Own Good.

Compared to these frequent comments on Flora's allegedly weak intellect, can you see how "She has man’s brain [and] a woman's heart" is actually a fairly decent compliment to Mina Harker on Stoker's part?

Shut the fuck up, Rymer

Why not speak of love, demands Charles Holland?? We spoke of love 24/7 on the Continent! Whyfore not thereunto??

"I am changed, Charles. Fearfully changed. The curse of God has fallen upon me, I know not why. I know not that in word or in thought I have done evil, except perchance unwittingly, and yet -- the vampyre."

Charles Holland insists that there's got to be a rational explanation, because he is not actually the one who shot a vampyre in the face, nor has he been anyone's repast. To which Flora basically says, "WELL FIND ONE THEN." Saying which, she flings herself onto a seat in the summer-house (I'm imagining a gazebo here), and "covering her beautiful face with her hands, [sobs] compulsively." To hundreds of words of Charles Holland's dismay, Flora goes on to say that he should go find someone else, and "justice, religion, mercy -- every human attribute which bears the name of virtue" calls upon her to dump him. Which, again: if Flora really wanted to break up with him, she wouldn't be talking about all the external factors making her do it. There are several great breakup scenes in English-language literature of the 1800s from Pride and Prejudice onward, and this, on many levels, is not one of them. Charles Holland (and a reader used to this kind of writing) would pick up on that subtext. (Truly, I cannot emphasize enough that fiction is not real life. Don't presume to know what other people "really" mean IRL.) Thus, Charles Holland counters with the wonderful marshmallow romance goo:

"Well I know that gentle maiden modesty [that we need to have in this Reasonably Decent Publication] would seal your lips to the soft confession that you love me. I could not hope the joy of hearing you utter these words. The tender devoted lover is content to see the truthful passion in the speaking eyes of beauty. Content is he to translate it from a thousand acts, which, to eyes that look not so acutely as a lover's, bear no signification; but when you tell me to seek happiness with another, well may the anxious question burst from my throbbing heart of, 'Did you ever love me, Flora?'" Her senses hung entranced upon his words. Oh, what a witchery is in the tongue of love. Some even of the former colour of her cheek returned as, forgetting all for the moment but that she was listening to the voice of him, the thoughts of whom had made up the day dream of her happiness, she gazed upon his face. His voice ceased. To her it seemed as if some music had suddenly left off in its most exquisite passage. She clung to his arm -- she looked imploringly up to him. Her head sunk upon his breast as she cried, "Charles, Charles, I did love you. I do love you now." "Then let sorrow and misfortune shake their grisly locks in vain," he cried. "Heart to heart -- hand to hand with me, defy them."

Their... gory hair? ANYWAY WE DEFY THE FATES, BELOVED! OUR LOVE CONQUERS ALL! WE CARE-BEAR STARE AT DESTINY, FLORA! Good hustle, that's what I wanna hear.

He lifted up his arms towards Heaven as he spoke, and at the moment came such a rattling peal of thunder, that the very earth seemed to shake upon its axis. [Flora screams and there is extensive discussion of how scary it is.] Another peal, of almost equal intensity to the other, shook the firmament. Flora trembled.

Gonna be honest, I thought for a moment that Varney was falling off a wall again. Flora declares that this is the Voice of Heaven insisting that they break up forever, but Charles Holland insists that

"The sunshine of joy will shine on you again." There was a small break in the clouds, like a window looking into Heaven. From it streamed one beam of sunlight, so bright, so dazzling, and so beautiful, that it was a sight of wonder to look upon. It fell upon the face of Flora; it warmed her cheek; it lent lustre to her pale lips and tearful eyes; it illuminated that little summer-house as if it had been the shrine of some saint.

Here we go again, let's note, with the insistence that Flora is intrinsically pure. How you like them omens? Now this, this is a promise of God, and yea, a dove with an olive branch probably flies through a rainbow somewhere over the house. Back in the day, I took a graduate class on (American, mid-1800s) sentimental literature, which my professor characterized as "weepin' and prayin'." A certain kind of Protestant piety runs deep through these texts—not just the American ones—and appears as a default mindset in a lot of 19th-century literature:

Most of the high profile female writers of this period were committed Christians. The Broad Church Brontës, the Unitarian Mrs Gaskell and the systematically unconventional Emily Dickinson made much use of their faith in their work. So did George Eliot, supersaturated with a religion in which she no longer believed, yet an accomplished theologian. The male writers were often committed believers too, despite the apparently worldly outlook of many, including apparently cynical Thackeray and robustly conventional Trollope. Throughout Victoria's reign, religious controversy simmers, not only among journalists but poets and novelists too. These Christian turf wars are sometimes edited out of readings of Victorian texts because they might not feel relevant to modern studies. Marianne Thormählen in The Brontës and Religion sees it differently: ‘The Christian life is a foreign country to most people today and I believe it serves some purpose to be reminded that to the Brontës it was home.’

The flip side of this is that vampire fiction tends to bring in a Catholic Christian vibe: no matter what denomination anyone was before the fangs came out, let's throw holy water and a wafer at the problem. But in the meantime!

She allowed him to clasp her to his heart. It was beating for her, and for her only.  [...] "Charles, we will live, love, and die together."

In "a wrapt stillness" and "a trance of joy," they stare at each other and smile and nearly cry for a good long while, which is very sweet. BUT THEN!

A shriek burst from Flora's lips -- as shriek so wild and shrill that it awakened echoes far and near. Charles staggered back a step, as if shot, and then in such agonised accents as he was long indeed in banishing the remembrance of, she cried, -- "The vampyre! the vampyre!"

Yeah, that's the chapter. You might recall that Sir Francis the Vampyre expressed hopes of courting Flora, so this is gonna get interesting.

Varney the Vampire masterpost

#varney the vampire #vampires #vampire studies #long post #recaps #tuberculosis #epidemics #beauty

[cleolinda]

Varney the Vampire: Chapter 9

Chapter 8: "Vampire hunting is harrrrrrd. I want to go hoooooome."

Chapter 9: Originally posted on Livejournal on February 20, 2011 in the same post as chapter 8. Revised a little for polish.

CHAPTER IX.

THE OCCURRENCES OF THE NIGHT AT THE HALL. -- THE SECOND APPEARANCE OF THE VAMPYRE, AND THE PISTOL-SHOT.

When we last left the Fearful Vampyre Hunters, Mr. Dr. Chillingworth was refusing to believe that the paranormal is even a thing; the Bannerworth brothers were limp with horror that their ancestor's missing remains were out vampyring somewhere, maybe; and Family Friend Marchdale and the aforementioned Chillingworth were trying to get them to fucking deal. So now we're going to cut back over to the Bannerworth house and check in on sister Flora Bannerworth, who has been left with their mother and ye olde pistols.

James Malcolm Rymer does something really interesting in this chapter, and I can't tell if it's on purpose or not: he essentially subverts the usual Brave Hero/Distressed Damsel setup by having Henry immediately abandon all will to live ("Nothing matters now. I care not what becomes of me"), and Flora, the actual victim, be the only Bannerworth with any moxie. So Flora's stuck at home with her terrified mother, waiting for the menfolks to stop meebling about how useless they are and come home from that church crypt, and she is beginning to think that maybe she can't handle this by herself.

Despite the full and free consent which Flora had given to her brothers to entrust her solely to the care of her mother and her own courage at the hall, she felt greater fear creep over her after they were gone than she chose to acknowledge.

(An interesting effort here to underline that Flora is left to protect herself by choice.)

But only maybe:

"But it is but for two hours," thought Flora, "and two hours will soon pass away."

Specifically, she reminds herself that the Crypt Squad will be gone from 9 to 11 pm (which is relatively early at night and probably not prime bite time for the vampyre, who arrived last time after midnight). Flora also has no idea what they're up to out in the ancestral church vaults:

It was not even guessed at, however remotely, so that she had not the additional affliction of thinking, that while she was sitting there, a prey to all sorts of imaginative terrors, they were perhaps gathering fresh evidence, as, indeed, they were, of the dreadful reality of the appearance which, but for the collateral circumstances attendant upon its coming and its going, she would fain have persuaded herself was but the vision of a dream.

Honestly, sometimes I like to quote from the text purely to remind you what we're dealing with here.

Meanwhile, as you will recall, Henry's shuffling around in the ancestral vault, moaning "listlessly" about how doing things is harrrrrrd. Flora and her mother wait bravely for the men in the shuttered breakfast room; an hour passes pretty quickly and Flora feels good about this and Mrs. Bannerworth's like, "Oh, Flora! You look much better than you did when the vampyre first made you his hideous repast!" (Henry, back at the crypt: "Being related to a vampire is the woooooorst thinnnnng that has ever happened to anyoooooone.") "Oh! Mother, do you hear that?" "What?" "Just... you know... something at the shutter I've been hearing for the last ten minutes. It's cool, I'm probably imagining it. I mean, I'm the one who got chewed on, I'm certainly not going to get scared." ("It's darrrrrk and I'm saaaaaaad.")

Flora herself trembled, and was of a death-like paleness; once or twice she passed her hand across her brow, and altogether she presented a picture of much mental suffering.

And yet she does not whine about it. Mrs. Bannerworth suggests ringing for some servants to wait it out with them, and Flora's like, "No, no, it's cool! What is that scratching at the window? No, no, I'm fine!" Hm. Maybe Flora needs to admit that she can't—shouldn’t have to—do this all by herself. Or maybe we can just have her waffle back and forth for three hundred words ("No, no! We don't need the servants to sit with us, everything's going to be OH GOD WHAT IS AT THE WINDOW?!?"), that's cool, because finally,

A faint cry came from Flora's lips, as she exclaimed, in a voice of great agony, --"Oh, God! -- oh, God! It has come again!" [207 words] Mrs. Bannerworth covered her face with her hands, and, after rocking to and fro for a moment, she fell off her chair, having fainted with the excess of terror that came over her. [240 words] [The entirety of which I spent laughing at the image of Mrs. Bannerworth falling off her chair like a stunned parrot] One glance, one terrified glance, in which [Flora's] whole soul was concentrated, sufficed to shew her who and what the figure was. There was a tall, gaunt form -- there was the faded ancient apparel -- the lustrous metallic-looking eyes -- its half-opened mouth, exhibiting tusk-like teeth! It was -- yes, it was -- the vampyre! [Tusks? Seriously? Maybe Varney just wants his bucket.] It stood for a moment gazing at her, and then in the hideous way it had attempted before to speak, it apparently endeavoured to utter some words which it could not make articulate to human ears. The pistols lay before Flora. Mechanically she raised one, and pointed it at the figure. It advanced a step, and then she pulled the trigger.

QUEEN SHIT

A stunning report followed. There was a loud cry of pain, and the vampyre fled.

YEAH HE DID

It was no effort of any reflection, but a purely mechanical movement, that made her raise the other pistol, and discharge that likewise in the direction the vampyre had taken.

Granted: Flora then flings the gun away and flees the room; she runs smack into Unidentified Guy Who Might Be the Vampyre (But Probably Isn't, Since the Vampyre Is Out Crashing Around in the Foliage) and faints right into his not-vampyre arms. But for one shining moment, someone did something.

(We have now run out of Livejournal-era recaps! At one point, I had read about halfway through the entire behemoth, but that was about 12 years ago now and I can't even remember what I had for breakfast, so this will mostly be new to me as well. Until I figure out about how long it takes me to recap a chapter from scratch, we're going to say that chapter 10 will go up on Friday, April 14. Could be sooner! Won't be later, unless fate gets tempted!)

#varney the vampire #vampires #vampire studies #long post #recaps

[cleolinda]

Varney the Vampire: Chapter 8

Chapter 7: The chapter about the matches.

Chapter 8: Originally posted on Livejournal on February 20, 2011. Revised a little for polish.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE COFFIN. -- THE ABSENCE OF THE DEAD. -- THE MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCE, AND THE CONSTERNATION OF GEORGE.

So, when last we left the Bannerworths, Flora was left to defend herself with a pistol (which did not come from a bedroom, because that is where you get crowbars and swords). The two Beaumont Bannerworth brothers, Mr. Matchdale Marchdale, and Mr. Dr. Not-Helsing the Unbeliever Chillingworth had FINALLY found some goddamn matches and gone into the family crypt, intending to prove whether Varney, or Runnagate, or somebody, is or is not a Vampire. Vampyre. Something.

They were all silent for a few moments as they looked around them with natural feelings of curiosity. Two of that party had of course never been in that vault at all, and the brothers, although they had descended into it upon the occasion, nearly a year before, of their father being placed in it, still looked upon it with almost as curious eyes as they who now had their first sight of it.

Henry and George proceed to meditate on the tomb of their kindred in 275 words' worth of "[R]omantic thought" while Marchdale and Chillingworth wait patiently. And it's a good thing they brought plenty of matches, because, once we are done having A Moment, we begin the epic, 960-word process of figuring out which coffin belongs to Sir Ancestor von Spookyportrait. See, if you're in the 21st century, you knock this out by saying, "There were nearly twenty coffins, and some of the outer name plates had fallen off, but the process of discovery began to move quickly after Marchdale realized that they only had to look at the inner plates on the very oldest coffins." Or, you know, something written More Better, but my point about the general length stands. When you're in the paid-by-the-word 19th century, Our Hero turns into a hand-wringing whiner, because what you want from your Fearless Vampire Hunters are a bunch of guys wandering around a crypt meebling that they don't know what to do. For nearly a thousand words. "There are so many coffinnnnnnns, I don't knoooooow." "Well, Henry, we could just look at the oldest ones..." "But there are soooo maaaaaanyyyyy." "Oh... I just opened one and it crumbled into dust. I guess... that's a no then?"

"We shall arrive at no conclusion," said George. "All seems to have rotted away among those coffins where we might expect to find the one belonging to Marmaduke Bannerworth, our ancestor."

You see what I was saying about going at night only proving that a body wasn't there, not that a vampire was?

"Here is a coffin plate," said Marchdale, taking one from the floor. He handed it to Mr. Chillingworth, who, upon an inspection of it, close to the light, exclaimed, -- "It must have belonged to the coffin you seek." "What says it?" "Ye mortale remains of Marmaduke Bannerworth, Yeoman. God reste his soule. A.D. 1640."

WAIT WAIT WAIT I thought Sir Ancestor was "Runnagate," and the Bannerworths' father was Marmaduke II? So this is Marmaduke I? But the ancestorpire was supposed to be "Runnagate" (and a Sir, not a yeoman), which... either James Malcolm Rymer is 10,000% not even reading what he just wrote (wouldn't be the first time!), or—perhaps I was right, "Runnagate" ("renegate, deserter, apostate") is a nickname given to the scandalous Marmaduke I by his descendants rather than, "Yes, we named him Renegade. I don't know what I expected."

Yessss, I can hear Rymer whispering from the Great Beyond, retcon this for meeeee.

"It is the plate belonging to his coffin," said Henry, "and now our search is fruitless."

"Vampire hunting is harrrrrrd. I want to go hoooooome."

"I should not be so hopeless," said Marchdale. "I have, from time to time, in the pursuit of antiquarian lore, which I was once fond of, entered many vaults,

Wait, what?

and I have always observed that an inner coffin of metal was sound and good, while the outer one of wood had rotted away, and yielded at once to the touch of the first hand that was laid upon it." "But, admitting that to be the case," said Henry, "how does that assist us in the identification of the coffin?"

Well, it definitely assists us in the padding of the word count.

With difficulty the name on the lid was deciphered, but it was found not to be the coffin of him whom they sought. "We can make short work of this," said Marchdale,

No. We can't. Nothing in Varney the Vampire will ever be "short."

("Why are we even tryyyyyyinnnnng, this is harrrrrd." "Henry, this is really not all that difficult. All we have to do is just check the plate against some of the older—" "It's darrrrrk and I'm saaaaaaad.")

But this does give us an opportunity to light their lights from the lights they already carry, because I guess they want to conserve matches? Because God knows they don't have enough. But then!

By the combined light of the candles they saw the words, --"Marmaduke Bannerworth, Yeoman. 1640." "Yes, there can be no mistake here," said Henry. "This is the coffin, and it shall be opened."

Absolutely. There can be no mistake here. Sir Ancestor's name was Marmaduke, Yeoman, and IT WAS ALWAYS MARMADUKE.

"I have the iron crowbar here," said Marchdale. "It is an old friend of mine, and I am accustomed to the use of it. Shall I open the coffin?"

They can't keep the names straight, but they can make sure Marchdale always has his beloved crowbar throughout his tomb-raiding adventures. I don't even know, y'all.

It was probably the partial rotting of the metal, in consequence of the damps of that place, what made it easier to open the coffin than it otherwise would have been, but certain it was that the top came away remarkably easily.

Can metal rot? Doesn't "rot" imply organic material? In the middle of googling "does iron have carbon in it," I realized that I was nitpicking in an attempt to keep my eyes from glazing over. Maybe the metal is just tired of Henry's bellyaching and wants to get this over with. So after some more rambling ("The few moments that elapsed were ones of very great suspense to every one there present; and it would, indeed, be quite safe to assert, that all the world was for the time forgotten in the absorbing interest which appertained to the affair which was OH SWEET FANCY FUCK OPEN THE COFFIN), Chillingworth takes charge of the candles, since Marchdale would probably leave them lying around somewhere and forget them. And he pokes his head in and goes, "Thank God! The body is totally there!" "Woohoo!" "Are you sure?" "I'm totally sure!" "Wait, are you sure you're sure? We should probably open it all the way, you know—" "Oh, psh, I'm sure it's totally there." "JUST LOOK OKAY."

There was a death-like pause for some few moments, and then Mr. Chillingworth said, in a low voice, -- "There is not the least vestige of a dead body here." Henry gave a deep groan. [...] "Oh, that I were dead! This is terrible. God of heaven, why are these things? Oh, if I were but dead, and so spared the torture of supposing such things possible."

So while Marchdale starts packing up to take Henry home for a cookie and a nap, George and Mr. Dr. Chillingworth start arguing over the probability of the existence of vampires. I don't know about you, but if I find myself so deep into the vampire-hunting business that I'm sifting through old rags in an empty coffin—rags which match the one torn off the guy who got toothy with my sister—I'm not really going to be arguing anymore.

"My young friend, I told you from the first, that I would not believe in your vampyre; and I tell you now, that if one was to come and lay hold of me by the throat, as long as I could at all gasp for breath I would tell him he was a d -- -- d impostor."

Again: I hope this guy gets eaten first.

"Shall we replace the pane of glass?" said Marchdale."Oh, it matters not -- it matters not," said Henry, listlessly; "nothing matters now. I care not what becomes of me -- am getting weary of a life which now must be one of misery and dread."

I just keep imagining George trying to drag his brother home, and Henry too hapless to even move his feet. He's half-draped over George's shoulder and his toes are dragging tracks in the crypt dust. "Nooooooo, I care noooooooot."

[Mr. Dr. Chillingworth:] "Well, but be a man. If there are serious evils affecting you, fight out against them the best way you can." "I cannot." [...] "Henry," he said, "the best way, you may depend, of meeting evils, be they great or small, is to get up an obstinate feeling of defiance against them. [...] Yes; I get very angry, and that gets up a kind of obstinacy, which makes me not feel half so much mental misery as would be my portion if I were to succumb to the evil, and commence whining over it, as many people do, under the pretence of being resigned."

Bravo! You can get eaten second.

"But this family affliction of mine transcends anything that anybody else ever endured."

There's a Christmas cactus on the table where I'm working, and I read this, and I looked at the cactus, and the cactus looked at me, and we just sort of... sat there for a moment and vibed in our mutual disbelief. And this is not even to speak of the fact that George, Henry's brother, is by definition going through the same family affliction. "BUCK UP, Henry, he's MY ANCESTOR TOO." "Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh." *draaaaaaag*

I also want to point out how, if Netflix or HBO or somebody came in and made a series of Varney the Vampire, this entire chapter could take place in about fifteen seconds onscreen. Maybe three minutes if they really needed to burn some screentime. Adapting this well (knowing how to balance the serial's potential for genuine gothic horror with its sheer absurdity) would probably be a great and fearsome challenge, and I'm not sure who's up to it—if anyone even wanted to. Hey, it's out of copyright and free, think about it.

Next time: Let's check in with Flora, the only Bannerworth with any gumption!

(Chapter 9 will go up on Friday, April 7. And that will be the last of the Livejournal-era recaps—we'll be in new territory after that.)

#varney the vampire #vampires #long post #recaps #vampire studies

[cleolinda]

Varney the Vampire: Chapter 7

Chapter 6: Cousins.

Chapter 7: Originally posted on Livejournal on December 14, 2010, in the same entry as chapter 6. Revised and expanded for clarity. Also, I removed a couple of old links to TV Tropes because what the fuck, y'all.

Previously on: A back story sidebar. The Bannerworth family is in genteel decline; houseguest Mr. Marchdale is financially independent and ambiguously related. We can never, ever move because a guy rescued Flora once. Back in the day, Henry's father Marmaduke Bannerworth II died suspiciously right after not saying where the treasure is buried. We might or might not ever hear about this again. However, it's perhaps notable that Someone wants to buy the house, presumably with that hidden money, out from under the Bannerworths.

CHAPTER VII.

THE VISIT TO THE VAULT OF THE BANNERWORTHS, AND ITS UNPLEASANT RESULT. -- THE MYSTERY.

Hey babe, how's it going? Flora has had a long delicious sleep with nary a vampyre upon it and is doing much better now. We're not going to hear about that, of course, because we could be following her brothers around while they drop paid-by-the-lines pearls of wisdom, such as:

"A visit? Where?"

"I much regret it."

"I comprehend you, Henry."

"True, most true."

"Do so."

"It has."

"Indeed."

"Yes."

If only this worked for term papers.

Wanting to keep Tumblr up to date with his adventures, Henry recaps to George,

"You know that at present we are not only led to believe, almost irresistibly, that we have been visited by a vampyre, but that that vampyre is our ancestor, whose portrait is on the panel of the wall of the chamber into which he contrived to make his way."

"Contrived" being the operative word here. Henry, despite his perpetual distress, has decided that they need to check the family burial vault for Sir Ancestor von Spookyportrait: fair, valid, reasonable. It has only taken the Brothers Bannerworth fifty-four pages from Flora getting bitten to arrive at this. I don't mean arrive at the vault, I mean arrive at the idea.

"Then let us go," said George, "by all means." "It is so decided then," said Henry. "Let it be done with caution," replied Mr. Marchdale. "If any one can manage it, of course we can."

Christ almighty. Someone, I genuinely cannot determine who, suggests, "Why should it not be done secretly and at night? Of course we lose nothing by making a night visit to a vault into which daylight, I presume, cannot penetrate." The problem is that they're working off the Norwegian page in the vampyre atlas, and they haven't heard that a vampyre is not going to be in its coffin at night. If Sir Runnagate (ca. 1700s) is really dead, sure, you'll find his moldering skeleton, everyone goes home, and... well, actually, that's worse, because then you won't have the first clue in hell what's going on. But if there's nothing in the coffin... all you've proven is that there's nothing in the coffin. Anything could have happened to the vault/remains in the course of a hundred years. Robbed, vandalized, disintegrated, you don't know. You're supposed to go during the day so that if the ancestor isn't dead, he's at least asleep and there and you stake him, I thought you people had read about vampires.

Of course, God forbid I was one of these characters, because a dissenting viewpoint would make this discussion go on three times as long. OH, THE THRILL OF LOGISTICS. Let's go! By all means! With caution! Of course! Let's go at night! But won't we have to ask the church if we can open the vault? No, it's your vault, you can do what you want! But certainly we will be seen! But that's why we're going at night! But what if we get caught? LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOO

All this being arranged, Henry proceeded to Flora, and told her that he and George, and Mr. Marchdale wished to go out for about a couple of hours in the evening after dark, if she felt sufficiently well to feel a sense of security without them. Flora changed colour, and slightly trembled, and then, as if ashamed of her fears, she said, -- "Go, go; I will not detain you. Surely no harm can come to me in presence of my mother."

I found this interesting if only because it reminded me of Mrs. Westenra staying up with Lucy in Dracula. And that… that did not end so well.

"And Flora does not seem much alarmed," said Marchdale, "at being left alone?" "No," replied Henry, "she has made up her mind with a strong natural courage which [no. too many words]." "It would have driven some really mad."

Says Marchdale, I presume while looking directly at Henry.

"And I fervently hope that, through her life," added Marchdale, "she may never have such another trial." "We will not for a moment believe that such a thing can occur twice."

Okay, it's a vampire, not lightning. And let's not even get into the logical point that a vampire is more likely to return to a previous victim—well, actually, let's. Our vampyre knows that Flora is as tasty as the spring, he knows how to unlatch her window, he knows which walls are good for jumping and falling his ass over, he knows where the best patches of moonlight for when he gets his dumb ass shot are—why the hell would he go somewhere else and start all over again? Do you have any idea how long it takes to case an ancestral gothic joint like this? So yeah. You leave that gun with Flora. "Not believe that such a thing can occur twice" my ass.

Then we get two hundred words about arming Flora against the thing that they do not believe can occur twice. I want you to understand that when I say there are so-and-so many hundred words of something, I am not exaggerating. I have Varney the Vampire in a Word document; I can highlight a passage and Word will tell me how long it is. When I say "two hundred words about arming Flora," I mean it. You've heard of a drabble—a short fanfic that was originally meant to be exactly one hundred words? This is Tumblr, of course you have. There are people who have actually written complete stories in half the amount of space it takes the Henry to get Flora a gun (but not from his bedroom, because that's where you keep swords and crowbars).

Out in the heathy moon-clouded landscape en route to the family vault, we run into Chillingworth ("Hilloa!" he cries, because Rymer found a way to lengthen hello, somehow) in the middle of THREE HUNDRED WORDS ABOUT FORGETTING THE MATCHES. "I forgot the matches!" "But you said you'd bring the matches!" "How could I have forgotten the matches!" "I despair at not having matches!" "Oh, but I have matches!" "So do I!" "I say! The matches I forgot were by far inferior!" "Indeed! I made these matches myself!" No, he did, with a li'l asbestos bottle and everything:

"Make yourselves easy on that score," said Mr. Chillingworth. "I am never without some chemical matches of my own manufacture, so that as you have the candles, that can be no bar to our going on at once."

If I had been writing this, I would have then had someone cry out, "But I forgot the candles!"

[The church] was an ancient building of the early English style of architecture, or rather Norman, with one of those antique, square, short towers, built of flint stones firmly embedded in cement, which, from time, had acquired almost the consistency of stone itself. There were numerous arched windows, partaking something of the more florid gothic style, although scarcely ornamental enough to be called such. The edifice stood in the centre of a grave-yard, which extended over a space of about half an acre, and altogether it was one of the prettiest and most rural old churches within many miles of the spot. [Words.] In Kent, to the present day, are some fine specimens of the old Roman style of church building; and, although they are as rapidly pulled down as the abuse of modern architects, and the cupidity of speculators, and the vanity of clergymen can possibly encourage, in order to erect flimsy, Italianised structures in their stead, yet sufficient of them remain dotted over England to interest the traveller.

The traveler. To interest the traveler. The traveler. WHAT ABOUT THE FUCKING VAMPIRE GODDAMN.

(He generally prefers Gothic architecture, the Fucking Vampire Goddamn does.)

"And now, the question is, how are we to get in?" said Mr. Chillingworth, as he paused, and glanced up at the ancient building. "The doors," said George

I just want to pretend for a moment that this sentence ends right there.

"The doors," said George, "would effectually resist us." "How can it be done, then?"

Why, with 235 words of poking out a windowpane!

That accomplished, Marchdale starts to feel a little queasy about Tampering with the Secrets of the Tomb, on principle. Chillingworth is having none of this—although, of course, he refuses to believe in vampires anyway:

"Nay, my dear sir, it is high time that death, which is, then, the inevitable fate of us all, should be regarded with more philosophic eyes than it is. There are no secrets in the tomb but such as may well be endeavoured to be kept secret."

Ah, yes, there are no things that are secret except things that should be secret. The sheer circularity of this statement did me so much psychic damage that I just sort of stared at a houseplant for a moment. Decomposition smells bad, is what Chillingworth is getting at.

"Ah, your profession hardens you to such matters." "And a very good thing that it does, or else, if all men were to look upon a dead body as something almost too dreadful to look upon, and by far too horrible to touch, surgery would lose its value, and crime, in many instances of the most obnoxious character, would go unpunished."

Now that I'm reading this for a second time... this is actually a really, really interesting thing for Chillingworth to say. Just mentally tuck that away for now.

"If we have a light here," said Henry, "we shall run the greatest chance in the world of being seen, for the church has many windows." "Do not have one, then, by any means," said Mr. Chillingworth.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MATCHES?!?!?!

"A match held low down in the pew may enable us to open the vault."

OH THANK GOD WE DID NOT BRING THEM IN VAIN

"Here is one of my chemical matches," said Mr. Chillingworth, as he suddenly irradiated the pew with a clear and beautiful flame, that lasted about a minute.

I'm not familiar with church vaults, but apparently there is room to have a trap door to a whole-ass crypt in front of the family pew. Maybe the idea is that the Bannerworths are the feudal landowner family of old, it's "their" church, and the pew is at the front, with plenty of room below for one (1) family's ancestral dead? I'm wading through two hundred entire words about loosening screws right now, I'm not operating at full brain power here.

"Let us descend," said Henry. "There is no further obstacle, my friends. Let us descend." "If any one," remarked George, in a whisper, as they slowly descended the stairs which conducted into the vault -- "if any one had told me that I should be descending into a vault for the purpose of ascertaining if a dead body, which had been nearly a century there, was removed or not, and had become a vampyre, I should have denounced the idea as one of the most absurd that ever entered the brain of a human being."

I'll give you that one, George. The thing you have to remember is that, unless the characters make post-modern references to other horror classics, you have to assume that those characters are unaware of them. In other words, characters in a book don't know they're in a book, and you can't expect them to know—unless they are genre savvy and adapt real quick to the idea that their life feels a lot like fiction right now—what they're supposed to do. They don't know the rules; they don't know there are rules. All we know at this point is that the Bannerworths are vaguely aware, thanks to some travelogue, that vampires come from Norway, or maybe the Levant, and can revive in the moonlight. They don't even think the same things are true about vampires that we do. So I have to stop and remind myself of that now and then.

(Back in the day, I used to refer to this idea as People In Dracula Don't Know They're In Dracula, which apparently picked up some currency as a phrase. I have a legacy!)

"Now for one of your lights, Mr. Chillingworth. You say you have the candle, I think, Marchdale, although you forgot the matches."

We're never going to get over this, are we? Twenty years from now—"Don't ask Marchdale to do it, he forgot THE MATCHES."

Marchdale took from his pocket a parcel which contained several wax candles, and when it was opened, a smaller packet fell to the ground. "Why, these are instantaneous matches," said Mr. Chillingworth, as he lifted the small packet up. "They are; and what a fruitless journey I should have had back to the hall," said Mr. Marchdale, "if you had not been so well provided as you are with the means of getting a light. These matches, which I thought I had not with me, have been, in the hurry of our departure, enclosed, you see, with the candles. Truly, I should have hunted for them at home in vain."

WELL, FUCK A DUCK

HE HAD THE MATCHES THE WHOLE TIME

SOMEONE CALL M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN

That's the end of the chapter. That's the end of the chapter! "Mr. Chillingworth lit the wax candle which was now handed to him by Marchdale, and in another moment the vault from one end of it to the other was quite discernible." WHAT'S DISCERNIBLE IN IT? Well, save up another penny for the dreadful and find out next week, I guess.

(Chapter 8 will go up on Tuesday, April 4.)

#the chapter about the matches #varney the vampire #vampires #people in dracula don't know they're in dracula #vampire studies

[cleolinda]

Varney the Vampire: Chapter 5

Chapter 4: The Vampyres of Norway can be revived by moonlight.

Chapter 5: Originally posted on Livejournal, December 8, 2010 in the same entry as chapter 4. Revised and expanded. Content: Abstract discussion of suicide and death in childbirth as folklore, no specifics.

Previously on:

"With regard to these vampyres, it is believed by those who are inclined to give credence to so dreadful a superstition, that they always endeavour to make their feast of blood, for the revival of their bodily powers, on some evening immediately preceding a full moon, because if any accident befall them, such as being shot, or otherwise killed or wounded, they can recover by lying down somewhere where the full moon's rays will fall on them."

Moon Insurance. *nods*

CHAPTER V.

THE NIGHT WATCH. -- THE PROPOSAL. -- THE MOONLIGHT. -- THE FEARFUL ADVENTURE.

So, upon realizing that the vampyre he doesn't believe in might not be dead after all, Henry kind of goes Blue Screen of Death for a few minutes, which is how his brother George finds him. George is bearing a letter (To you! Oh really? Yes really! That's interesting. Yes, quite, you should read it! Should I? Indeed!), which is finally the Offer of Help from Sir Francis Varney that we were promised two chapters ago.

"Sir Francis Varney presents his compliments to Mr. Beaumont, and is much concerned to hear that some domestic affliction has fallen upon him. Sir Francis hopes that the genuine and loving sympathy of a neighbour will not be regarded as an intrusion, and begs to proffer any assistance or counsel that may be within the compass of his means. "[Sent from] Ratford Abbey."

Henry: "Who?" George reminds him expositionally that A Gentleman of That Name has recently—

Wait, what the fuck, I just now noticed the "Beaumont" thing, twelve years after I first posted this. Who the fuck is Mr. Beaumont? Did Rymer straight-up forget the family's name is Bannerworth? Did he even read this before he sent it to the printer?

—has recently moved into Carfax Ratford Abbey; Henry wants nothing to do with him, because he feels angsty about the Bannerworths being secretly poor, due to ancestral shenaniganry. Etiquette! Acquaintances! Civility! Surely a round snub will teach that Sir Francis to go about this fine neighborhood having sympathy. Meanwhile, George's primary characteristic is somewhat sickly (mood, honestly), so he and Henry bicker a bit about what part he (George) should play in the evening's festivities. Eventually they decide that George should stay home and watch over Flora while Henry and Marchdale go a-vamphuntin'. Oh, by the way, did Marchdale mention that he actually tore a piece of the vampire's coat off last night? Because he totally did:

He produced a piece of cloth, on which was an old-fashioned piece of lace, and two buttons. Upon a close inspection, this appeared to be a portion of the lappel of a coat of ancient times, and suddenly, Henry, with a look of intense anxiety, said, -- "This reminds me of the fashion of garments very many years ago, Mr. Marchdale." "It came away in my grasp as if rotten and incapable of standing any rough usage." "What a strange unearthly smell it has!" "Now that you mention it yourself," added Mr. Marchdale, "I must confess it smells to me as if it had really come from the very grave."

Which, again, points to Varney being a vampyre of some age, not a newly-minted one. Which makes Volume Two a bit confusing. But I get ahead of myself.

"A thought has just stuck me that the piece of coat I have, which I dragged from the figure last night, wonderfully resembles in colour and appearance the style of dress of the portrait in the room which Flora lately slept in." [...] Mr. Marchdale held the piece of cloth he had close to the dress of the portrait, and one glance was sufficient to show the wonderful likeness between the two. "Good God!" said Henry, "it is the same!"

Okay. What is this telling us? That Varney = Sir Runnagate "Oh, Why Not" Bannerworth. That's what this is telling us, right? Right?

"I can tell you something which bears upon it. I do not know if you are sufficiently aware of my family history to know that this one of my ancestors, I wish I could say worthy ancestors, [died by] suicide, and was buried in his clothes."

Which is traditionally one of the ways people might become vampires—violent, sudden, and/or particularly self-harming deaths. See, for example, the upiór of Serbia, or the German nachzehrer. See also "Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality" for how some Eastern European folklore in particular may have developed to explain stages of decomposition, if you feel like you have the stomach for it. The bhūta of the Indian subcontinent seems to be somewhat less about self-harm and more about untimely deaths and unsettled matters. On the other hand, you see "death in childbirth" as a specific cause in Southeast Asia: the Indonesian kuntilanak, the Malay pontianak, and, separately, the Malay langsuyar. Interestingly, there are many, many vampiric figures in other cultures which were never human in the first place, such as spirits, demons, cryptids, fae, and more. Which is outside the scope of this one paragraph, but my point is, while I want to acknowledge a certain cultural diversity of vampire lore, with the "European vampire" that Rymer mentioned in the previous chapter, suicide is a specifically associated cause. He's giving us that hint. We're talking about it now. Sir Runnagate died that way. He's wearing this coat in the portrait and was buried in it. Varney is now wearing the coat. Right?

"You -- you are sure of that?" "Quite sure."

I'm holding you to this, okay. I have written it down, Tumblr has witnessed it, you are held.

BUT HARK: "The vampyre -- the vampyre! God of heaven, it has come once again!"

Wait, no, it's just Mr. Dr. Chillingworth creeping around in the laurel bushes. Dumbass.

Well, while we're out here nearly obliterating Chillingworth, we might as well take a turn around the grounds. George, you okay with that? No, wait, he needs a weapon if he's going to sit with Flora by himself. So he is going to his bedroom to get the sword that he keeps in his bedroom, because that's where you keep swords, in your bedroom, if you're the kind of person who keeps swords in his bedroom, but you're not Marchdale who keeps crowbars in his bedroom, and OH MY GOD, JUST GO, GO!

Four hundred words about ladders and the beauty of the night later, LOOK! "There is a young lime tree yonder to the right." I'm going to stop here and note—well, number one, by "lime tree" they most likely mean "linden," rather than "a tree that limes grow on." Secondly—that's what Carmilla passes each dawn on the way back to her grave, an avenue of lime trees. "Carmilla" was written nearly thirty years later (1874), so is that an allusion to this scene? In searching for "linden" and "lime tree" between 2010 and now, I have only ever seen 1) one unattested claim that linden is used for vampire stakes, 2) a VTM character (clan: Toreador), and 3) a New Orleans legend that might be fiction in the first place, I'm not sure. I don't know, it just seems wildly coincidental that lindens would turn up in two major vampire works. (I also looked up "laurel," such as Chillingworth nearly got "do[ne] some execution" in, and only found a recent game. I'm sorry, I'm autistic and detail-fixated and we're just all going to have to deal with that.)

(I would also like to mention that googling back in 2010 turned up an article titled, "Use of Mist Nets and Strychnine for Vampire Control in Trinidad." You gotta nip this kind of thing in the bud, or you're going to end up with a nasty vampire infestation. Vampire control is a serious problem that affects us all. I know a lot of people like to get their kids vampires for the holidays, but they get tired of them so fast, you know? "Daddy, the vampire is boring, he just sleeps all day, I want a werewolf." So many vampires end up abandoned in shelters, the kind you see in those sad commercials with the Sarah McLachlan songs and the big sad eyes and the captions that say, "Am I going to get staked today?," or just dumped out on the streets. And then you've just got an out-of-control feral vampire population and nobody wants that. Please, be responsible with your vampires.)

Meanwhile, under that lime tree is the vampyre, THE VAMPYRE!!, the body of which begins to tremble back to vitality in the [fifteen synonyms for radiant] moonlight:

As the moonbeams, in consequence of the luminary rising higher and higher in the heavens, came to touch this figure that lay extended on the rising ground, a perceptible movement took place in it. The limbs appeared to tremble, and although it did not rise up, the whole body gave signs of vitality.

"Look! We did kill it last night! The moonlight is reviving it!" BANG! "I've killed it again!' "DUMBASS, IT'S JUST GETTING UP AGAIN." BANG! In my head, this keeps going for a good five minutes. BANG! Mr. Dr. Chillingworth gets fed up with this, however, and decides to charge the lime tree with his cane/sword, but the vampyre flees into the dark, scary forest, where even sword-canes fear to swagger.

But it's not like Chillingworth actually thinks it's really a vampyre or anything.

"No, indeed; if you were to shut me up in a room full of vampyres, I would tell them all to their teeth that I defied them. [...] True; I saw a man lying down, and then I saw a man get up; he seemed then to be shot, but whether he was or not he only knows; and then I saw him walk off in a desperate hurry. Beyond that, I saw nothing."

I hope he's the first to get eaten.

Henry, meanwhile, is reaching a state of "mental prostration," "so much intense excitement, and evidence of mental suffering":

"Is [my impression] at all within the compass of the wildest belief that what we have seen is a vampyre, and no other than my ancestor who, a hundred years ago, [died by] suicide?"

Which, fair, it's kinda fucked up YOU SAID IT! YOU SAID IT!! YOU CAN'T ACT LIKE YOU DIDN'T SAY IT NOW!

Marchdale, however, finally comes up with the bright idea that, if it really is a Bannerworth ancestor and they know which one it is, why don't we just find the grave and dig it up? Now, now, sir, how are we supposed to drag this out for 230 chapters if you go having ideas and such?

(Chapter 6 will go up on Tuesday, March 28.)

#varney the vampire #vampires #vampire bats #suicide cw #death cw #long posts #vampire studies

[cleolinda]

Varney the Vampire: Chapter 4

Chapter 3: Blood everywhere; a lightswitch rave.

Chapter 4: Originally posted on Livejournal, December 8, 2010. Revised and expanded from the original recap to talk more about literary vampiring.

CHAPTER IV.

THE MORNING. -- THE CONSULTATION. -- THE FEARFUL SUGGESTION.

No, I didn't skip it—there wasn't any "offer of assistance from Sir Francis Varney" in the previous chapter. Not even so much as an apologetic plate of cookies left on the garden wall. Was there any revision involved in writing this, or did James Malcolm Rymer just... put the pen to the paper and wait for the check? Not that I don't feel you, my guy, but "I'm just gonna seat-of-my-pants 667,000 words" is a terrifying prospect (I had thought he'd at least write each chapter once and then revise it to be worse). I'm pretty sure I've put more revision into this blog post, for free. Side note, my man James Malcolm:

What wonderfully different impressions and feelings, with regard to the same circumstances, come across the mind in the broad, clear, and beautiful light of day to what haunt the imagination, and often render the judgment almost incapable of action, when the heavy shadow of night is upon all things. There must be a downright physical reason for this effect -- it is so remarkable and so universal. It seems that the sun's rays so completely alter and modify the constitution of the atmosphere, that it produces, as we inhale it, a wonderfully different effect upon the nerves of the human subject. We can account for this phenomenon in no other way. Perhaps never in his life had he, Henry Bannerworth, felt so strongly this transition of feeling as he now felt it, when the beautiful daylight gradually dawned upon him, as he kept his lonely watch by the bedside of his slumbering sister.

Bram Stoker:

No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and dear to his heart and eye the morning can be. When the sun grew so high this morning that it struck the top of the great gateway opposite my window, the high spot which it touched seemed to me as if the dove from the ark had lighted there. My fear fell from me as if it had been a vaporous garment which dissolved in the warmth.

I'm not pointing this out to say that Stoker did or did not Steal Like An Artist from, perhaps, a collected serial he read in his boyhood, and then wrote it better. Honestly, if he did? Good for him. I'm pointing this out to say, I only have one short life to live, and for some reason, I decided to spend it reading this.

So. In the light of day, Henry finally looks over at the spooky portrait and thinks to himself, you know, that right there is a Spooky Portrait and it gives me a scare:

He tried to keep himself from looking at it, but he found it vain, so he adopted what, perhaps, was certainly the wisest, best plan, namely, to look at it continually.

I don't know why this makes me laugh so much. Sure, that's a plan. And, Henry notes, it's even one of those paintings where the eyes follow you around the room. Maybe we should, you know, take it down. And then he goes, eh. It's a rare work of art, it's painted onto the panel and we'd have to call a contractor out here, we were out all night watching that vampyre fall on his ass, I'm kind of tired, whatevs.

Meanwhile, Flora is still (quite reasonably) traumatized: "My brain is on fire! A million of strange eyes seem to be gazing on me." Like, I'm not actually trying to compare this sentence by sentence (god forbid) to Dracula, but I know it well enough that I remember Jonathan using the same "brain on fire" wording—how common an expression was this? I even went back to check Polidori's "The Vampyre"—"his thoughts were bursting from his brain," an oddly specific throughline of brain-centric disturbance. Just Vampyre Things, I guess.

Despite having chased the vampyre to his own garden wall, Henry is utterly baffled as to why Flora would be so upset—physically weakened, even! She was fine yesterday! What, oh what, could have happened??, he inquires of Mr. Marchdale. Henry is probably saying this while a housekeeper bustles past with a huge bundle of blood-soaked sheets. What do we think was in Flora's room, even though we all saw it gnawing on her throat and we're pretty sure what it was? I mean, we just saw someone making a hideous repast of her, I am completely baffled. But wait! says Marchdale. I've thought of an answer! Now—hold on for this— (I'm holding on—) Because this is gonna blow your mind— (Okay, keep going—) Are you ready for this? (I'm totally ready for this—) I think it was—I can hardly bring myself to say the word aloud and will continue not to say it for another 100 words— (SAY IT GODDAMMIT—) A VAMPYRE!

Well, why do you think this?

"... my pistol bullets hurt him not; and he has left the tokens of his presence on the neck of Flora." "Peace, oh! peace. Do not, I pray you, accumulate reasons why I should receive such a dismal, awful superstition. Oh, do not, Marchdale, as you love me!" "You know my attachment to you," said Marchdale, "is sincere; and yet, Heaven help us!" His voice was broken by grief as he spoke, and he turned aside his head to hide the bursting tears that would, despite all his efforts, show themselves in his eyes.

For shame, Henry, you made your mom's... someone... cry! (Don't get me wrong, I love Weepy Masculinity, and we'll talk about it more another time.) But Henry is shocked, I tell you, shocked! that Marchdale should come to such a conclusion! To believe would drive him mad, I tell you! MAAAAAAAAD!

And then George comes in all like, "Guys, I know this is gonna sound crazy, but—hold on for this—I think it was a—" "VAMPYRE, WE KNOW." And now George the "frail reed" is crying, Henry, see what you've done?

Unfortunately, Henry is pretty much the only person in a hundred-mile radius who is having trouble with this concept; the servants, we are told, immediately ran out and told everyone about the vampyre flumping over the garden wall. Henry rides into town to fetch a doctor and immediately runs into Some Gentleguy on Horseback. "Bro, what's this about your sister getting bit by a vampyre?" "Uh... no. That was... a thief. That was totally a thief." "No? Seriously, the whole town's talking about it. You sure? Like fang marks and everything—" "MAAAAAD, I TELL YOUUUUU!!"

At last Henry gets to the doctor—who starts out as "Mr. Chillingworth" and mysteriously becomes "Dr. Chillingworth" some five hundred pages from now. (In fairness, many doctors, particularly surgeons, were merely "Mister" long into the nineteenth century. Side note: The Scarlet Letter would not be published until 1850, and on a different continent at that. I checked, because I immediately thought the name was an allusion.) So Mr. Dr. Chillingworth listens to Henry's story, and I'm getting all clappy because this has got to be our Van Helsing figure, and I have always loved the Kindly Old Doctor Who Knows All the Legends type, and so Henry finishes and Chillingworth declares—

"I don't care if [the facts] were ten times more glaring, I won't believe it. I would rather believe you were all mad, the whole family of you -- that at the full of the moon you all were a little cracked."

(*record needle scratch*)

Well, Stoker certainly didn't run off with that.

So Henry gets back to Bannerworth Hall and he starts telling Flora that it was totally a thief who was chewing on her throat. Totally. But he'll just keep sitting by her bedside. You know. Just in case more thieving is a-fang.

"Then I shall rest in peace, for I know that the dreadful vampyre cannot come to me when you are by." "The what, Flora?" "The vampyre, Henry. It was a vampyre." "Good God, who told you so?"

She was… there? The holes in her neck? Keep up? Maybe Henry has that Memento thing where he can't remember anything for longer than five minutes, which—well, that would explain a lot about the writing style, actually. Flora replies,

"No one. I have read of them in the book of travels in Norway, which Mr. Marchdale lent us all."

So--a møøse bit his sister?

"They do say, too, that those who in life have been bled by a vampyre, become themselves vampyres, and have the same horrible taste for blood as those before them. Is it not horrible?"

For those of you keeping score, in-story popular belief at this point is that it takes only one bite to turn you into a vampire. This is contradicted later, because of course it is, but it's worth noting; it fits with the idea that the less sexually permissive a society/era is, the more easily you get punished by the contagion. You'd think, then, that this bodes ill for Flora, but as far as I know, either Flora has a Purity Override, or fuck continuity, that's what.

Enter Mr. Dr. Chillingworth, who wants to know about Flora's "dream." "It wasn't a dream, it was a vampyre!" "Is that what you call a dream?" NO, IT'S WHAT I CALL A VAMPYRE. She shows him the bites on her neck, and he's all, pshhhh, those, those are totally insect bites. You know, giant seven-foot insects with scratchy fingernails and hypnotic tin eyes. Bit of Raid's all you need, take care of that in a jiff.

Chillingworth and Henry say nothing in particular for 300 words, at the end of which Chillingworth finally declares that vampyres are "a degrading superstition," and that Flora seems to be "labouring under the effect of some narcotic." You know, those narcotics you staple into people's necks, leaving two (2) holes. Or: blood loss, but that's far less likely, in his medical opinion, so he's just confused now.

"You have, of course, heard something," said Henry to the doctor, as he was pulling on his gloves, "about vampyres."

"I certainly have, and I understand that in some countries, particularly Norway and Sweden, the superstition is a very common one."

And he thinks Let the Right One In was much better than the remake.

WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT?

I don't know why I didn't mention this in 2010, but I'm guessing Henry is referring to the Old Norse draugr—like, I know there are Scandinavian vampires, it's just that... I've never seen English-language vampire literature of the 1800s mention them? LeFanu mentions "Upper and Lower Styria, in Moravia, Silesia, in Turkish Serbia, in Poland, even in Russia" in "Carmilla" (1872), and Andrew Lang wasn't talking about draugr until late 1897, "with the idea further pursued by more modern commentators." Polidori's "Ruthven" is a Scottish name, and its bearer goes vampiring in Greece, for that matter. In fact, when Henry chimes in, "And in the Levant," Rymer may be alluding to Polidori. But he just throws "Norwegian vampires" in like, well, obviously. What, haven't you read Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar, published in English, uh, twenty years from now?

However Rymer came by this, whatever travelogue he did read, the draugr doesn't seem to have caught on quite the way Dracula, or even Ruthven, did. Who knows, maybe "Transylvanian vampires" sounded equally random in 1897, but that's the lore that won pop culture.

Mr. Dr. Chillingworth also mentions "the ghouls of the Mahometans." The word "ghoul" comes directly from the Arabic word ghūl, which is "associated with graveyards and the consumption of human flesh," although the concept seems to be pre-Islamic Arabian, not specifically "Mahometan" (i.e., Mohammedan, an archaic or even offensive term; TIL). Rymer would have known the word from the influential 1786 Gothic-Orientalist novel Vathek, and may have even used it here as a specific callback, because it would be a shame to just go on and have a vampyre without blaming it on Those Foreigners. Chillingworth continues,

"All that I have heard of the European vampyre has made it a being which can be killed, but is restored to life again by the rays of a full moon falling on the body."

Here we go. It's worth noting here (no, I swear it is) that the idea of sunlight instantly killing vampires is a complete invention of the German film Nosferatu (1922), an "unauthorized adaptation" of Dracula. I love bringing this up as often as possible, because Dracula being slain by a convenient blast of light (Horror of Dracula, 1958, reporting for duty) is such a deeply ingrained pop-culture thing, and it is 10,000% not in the original novel. Which all you Dracula Daily regulars know, I'm sure. Stoker plays as loose with his Vampire Rules as Rymer does, but Dracula does appear in daylight at least twice that I can remember off the top of my head, although it's said to weaken him. I feel like the functional point of this is to have Any Time At All When The Heroes Have A Shot In Hell At Not Getting Eaten, and so this is why the literary vampire of the 1800s sometimes has to scamper off to its coffin at the stroke of dawn. Carmilla has to do this, but she also strolls back to Laura's house at... one in the afternoon; clearly, sunlight is not terribly crucial to the lore. Rather, it's moonlight that's associated with vampires earlier in the century—as a means of reviving them. It's actually a key plot point in Polidori's "The Vampyre" (back in 1819), and one of the stand-out elements in the popular awareness of vampires at the time.

Oh! By the way, tonight happens to be the night of the full moon. Even Chillingworth says, "If now you had succeeded in killing —. Pshaw, what am I saying."

"To-night," [Henry] repeated, "is the full of the moon. How strange that this dreadful adventure should have taken place just the night before."

Indeed. And the serial really wants us to notice this. You'd think a vampyre might avoid a bright night when they'd be more likely to be seen, but, on the other hand, maybe that's Moon Insurance in case they get capped on someone's garden wall. To confirm, Henry gets Travels in Norway off the bookshelf, and—after a thorough, paid-by-the-word description of how books sometimes open at certain pages, right down to the way the binding gets stretched—

"With regard to these vampyres, it is believed by those who are inclined to give credence to so dreadful a superstition, that they always endeavour to make their feast of blood, for the revival of their bodily powers, on some evening immediately preceding a full moon, because if any accident befall them, such as being shot, or otherwise killed or wounded, they can recover by lying down somewhere where the full moon's rays will fall on them."

There it is. Since we're going chapter by chapter, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture, but what I think the serial is getting at is, Varney probably is "dead" somewhere on the heathy landscape after getting his hapless ass shot. Except—EXCEPT! for the moonlight that just so happens to be in place to revive him. Because, while the FULL MOON. IT'S A FULL MOON might seem kind of randomly gothic to us, everyone reading this in 1847 would have been chortling in anticipation.

(Chapter 5 will go up on Friday, March 24.)

#vampires #varney the vampire #long post #just vampyre things #vampire studies

[cleolinda]

Varney the Vampire: Chapter 15

Chapter 14: So anyway, when do we kill him

I need to start this off with a full Previously On, and you’ll see why in a minute:

Fair damsel Flora Bannerworth was attacked one night by a befanged, leaden-eyed vampyre. Her mother mostly faints about it; it’s her two brothers, Henry and George, who have been trying to protect her and figure out what the fuck is going on. Their allies are their housemate/kinda-uncle, Mr. Marchdale, who was once their mother’s sweetheart before she chose the brothers’ shitheel father (RIP) instead; Flora’s recently returned fiancé, the virtuous young artist Charles Holland; and a Mr. Dr. Chillingworth, who thinks vampyres are bullshit. Amid several incidents where various Bannerworths shoot the vampyre, Henry realizes that the ancestor in a spooky portrait in Flora’s bedroom is one and the same. But also, a mysterious new neighbor keeps offering to buy the family estate. In the last two chapters, Henry and Marchdale paid a visit to this Sir Francis Varney, only to realize that HE is the vampyre/ancestor. Henry said to his face, “HOLY SHIT, YOU’RE THE VAMPYRE.” And the vampyre said, “Nah.”

None of these characters and none of these settings are in this chapter. Instead, two entirely new characters are introduced (for 4800 words). You are either going to love this, or you are going to hate this.

Chapter XV.

THE OLD ADMIRAL AND HIS SERVANT. -- THE COMMUNICATION FROM THE LANDLORD OF THE NELSON'S ARMS.

We've already been told that the servants (both the ones who immediately quit after the vampyring, and the replacements who reluctantly agreed to start working at Bannerworth Hall) have run out and told everybody in the neighborhood everything; Henry's already had total randos ask him about The Horrors. We're told now that:

The servants, who had left the Hall on no other account, as they declare, but sheer fright at the awful visits of the vampyre, spread the news far and wide, so that in the adjoining villages and market-towns the vampyre of Bannerworth Hall became quite a staple article of conversation. [...] Everywhere then, in every house, public as well as private, something was being continually said of the vampyre. [...] But nowhere was gossiping carried on upon the subject with more systematic fervour than at an inn called the Nelson's Arms, which was in the high street of the nearest market town to the Hall. There, it seemed as if the lovers of the horrible made a point of holding their head quarters, and so thirsty did the numerous discussions make the guests, that the landlord was heard to declare that he, from his heart, really considered a vampyre as very nearly equal to a contested election.

Ahhh, contested elections. Sad lol. But now, we're told, on the very evening of the day that Henry accused Varney of being a vampyre, and Varney just shrugged, two new characters that we don't know shit about have arrived:

One of these people was a man who seemed fast verging upon seventy years of age, although, from his still ruddy and embrowned complexion and stentorian voice, it was quite evident he intended yet to keep time at arm's-length for many years to come. He was attired in ample and expensive clothing, but every article had a naval animus about it, if we may be allowed such an expression with regard to clothing. On his buttons was an anchor, and the general assortment and colour of the clothing as nearly assimilated as possible to the undress naval uniform of an officer of high rank some fifty or sixty years ago. His companion was a younger man, and about his appearance there was no secret at all. He was a genuine sailor, and he wore the shore costume of one. He was hearty-looking, and well dressed, and evidently well fed.

James Malcolm Rymer's favorite humor format is Characters Who Don't Talk Classy Lmao:

"Heave to!" [the younger man] then shouted to the postillion, who was about to drive the chaise into the yard. "Heave to, you lubberly son of a gun! we don't want to go into the dock." "Ah!" said the old man, "let's get out, Jack. This is the port; and, do you hear, and be cursed to you, let's have no swearing, d -- n you, nor bad language, you lazy swab."

Lol. Rofl, even.

The Younger Man is Jack Pringle, and he helpfully informs The Old Man, one Admiral Bell, that he has been his [the Admiral's] walley de sham on dry land for ten years. The Dictionaries of the Scots Language (before and after 1700)  inform us that this term is derived from the French valet de chambre, a personal servant. (The search also turned up some British and Irish usage, and Jack does not otherwise sound Scottish, or even "Scottish.") Interestingly, when I googled this phrase, the image search tab pulled up nothing but Varney the Vampire illustrations. None of them had Jack or the Admiral.

I'm belaboring this point because about 85% of this chapter is just these two characters squabbling and it is draining my will to live.

"Be quiet, will you!" shouted the admiral, for such indeed he was. "Be quiet." [...] "Belay there," said Jack; and he gave the landlord what he considered a gentle admonition, but which consisted of such a dig in the ribs, that he made as many evolutions as the clown in a pantomime when he vociferated hot codlings.

"Hot Codlings" is a song from a Mother Goose pantomime. What evolutions are vociferating. Why are words doing this. Where are we.

Bruised and confused, the landlord of the Nelson's Arms is doing his best to be hospitable; finally, the Admiral reveals that he has been sent a letter asking him to stop at this very inn, here in Uxotter (which might be Uttoxeter), by one Josiah Crinkles:

"Who the deuce is he?"

I don't know, you're the one who just drove up! The landlord cannot seem to get anything useful out of his mouth for several lines, because James Malcolm Rymer gets paid more that way. Note: "d -- -- d" will show up several times; it's just "damned," censored, and it's the expletive these two mostly fall back on:

"I'll make you smile out of the other side of that d -- -- d great hatchway of a mouth of yours in a minute. Who is Crinkles?" [The landlord:] "Oh, Mr. Crinkles, sir, everybody knows. A most respectable attorney, sir, indeed, a highly respectable man, sir." [Several lines of banter] "To come a hundred and seventy miles to see a d -- -- d swab of a rascally lawyer!"

But then, Jack Pringle says something interesting:

"Well, but where's Master Charles? Lawyers, in course, sir, is all blessed rogues; but howsomedever, he may have for once in his life this here one of 'em have told us of the right channel, and if so be as he has, don't be the Yankee to leave him among the pirates. I'm ashamed of you."

Who in this story do we know named Charles? We'll get to that several hundred words from now. Meanwhile, a bit more of the rapport between Jack Pringle and the Admiral:

"You infernal scoundrel; how dare you preach to me in such a way, you lubberly rascal?" "Cos you desarves it." "Mutiny -- mutiny -- by Jove! Jack, I'll have you put in irons -- you're a scoundrel, and no seaman." "No seaman! -- no seaman!"

The fact that this line does not end with the dialogue tag "he ejaculated" is one of literature's great tragedies.

This goes on for so long that it starts to take on a nonsensical—dadaist? that can't be right? what is happening. I don't know—quality:

"Confound you, who is doing it?" "The devil." "Who is?" "Don't, then."

Over a couple hundred words, Jack and the Admiral demand grog and a private room at the inn, and for the landlord to send for one Mr. Josiah Crinkles ("and tell him Jack Pringle is here too"). After jawing a while about how they'll serve this rascally lawyer out howsomedever, Jack says something interesting again:

"And, then, again, he may know something about Master Charles, sir, you know. Lord love him, don't you remember when he came aboard to see you once at Portsmouth?"

And right when you think we might hear who Master Charles is, they start arguing again, this time about the time they were yard arm to yard arm with those two Yankee frigates (wait they were what now? when now? the War of 1812, maybe? they can't both be old enough for the American Revolution?) and "you didn't call me a marine then," which is insulting and distinct from "seaman" in some way,

"when the scuppers were running with blood. Was I a seaman then?" "You were, Jack -- you were; and you saved my life." "I didn't." "You did."

CHRIST ALMIGHTY THEY KEEP ARGUING ABOUT THIS (bickering is how they show they care) until finally the landlord, with a flourish, ushers in one Mr. Josiah Crinkles.

A little, neatly dressed man made his appearance, and advanced rather timidly into the room. Perhaps he had heard from the landlord that the parties who had sent for him were of rather a violent sort. "So you are Crinkles, are you?" cried the admiral. "Sit down, though you are a lawyer."

There is no respect for lawyers in the Admiral's house! Ship! Room! We are now about halfway through the chapter. God give me strength. The Admiral bids Josiah Crinkles read the full supercut of the letter from Josiah Crinkles, aloud. I will reproduce it in full whether you like it or not:

"To Admiral Bell. "Admiral, -- Being, from various circumstances, aware that you take a warm and a praiseworthy interest in your nephew Charles Holland,

CHARLES HOLLAND BABY

I venture to write to you concerning a matter in which your immediate and active co-operation with others may rescue him from a condition which will prove, if allowed to continue, very much to his detriment, and ultimate unhappiness. "You are, then, hereby informed, that he, Charles Holland, has, much earlier than he ought to have done, returned to England, and that the object of his return is to contract a marriage into a family in every way objectionable, and with a girl who is highly objectionable. "You, admiral, are his nearest and almost his only relative in the world; you are the guardian of his property, and, therefore, it becomes a duty on your part to interfere to save him from the ruinous consequences of a marriage, which is sure to bring ruin and distress upon himself and all who take an interest in his welfare. "The family he wishes to marry into is named Bannerworth, and the young lady's name is Flora Bannerworth. When, however, I inform you that a vampyre is in that family, and that if he married into it, he marries a vampyre, and will have vampyres for children,

Remember what I said about family stains and tainted bloodlines?

"I trust I have said enough to warn you upon the subject, and to induce you to lose no time in repairing to the spot. "If you stop at the Nelson's Arms in Uxotter, you will hear of me. I can be sent for, when I will tell you more. "Yours, very obediently and humbly, "JOSIAH CRINKLES." P.S. I enclose you Dr. Johnson's definition of a vampyre, which is as follows: "VAMPYRE (a German blood-sucker) -- by which you perceive how many vampyres, from time immemorial, must have been well entertained at the expense of John Bull, at the court of St. James, where nothing hardly is to be met with but German blood-suckers."

I was legitimately about five minutes from hitting post with this written as "I despair of figuring out who Dr. Johnson is," when suddenly I managed to dredge SAMUEL JOHNSON WITH THE DICTIONARY!! out of my covid-riddled brain. ~Dr. Johnson didn't define "vampyre" (any spelling), so whatever Rymer's on about here, he made it up himself with a wink to the reader.

I also wasn't going to deal with the fact that vampyres are suddenly German rather than Norwegian, or Swedish, or Levantine, or Arabian. But then I realized that this might be related to that time Empress Maria Theresa sent a guy out to deal with A Vampire Problem. (The fact that I'm the kind of person who would go, "Oh, right, the Austrian vampire problem" is why I'm recapping this godforsaken serial in the first place.) And you might refer to vampires as "German" because all the areas involved, including the Austrian Empire, were in the German Confederation at the time Rymer was writing in the 1840s. Referred to as "the 18th-Century Vampire Controversy,"

The panic began with an outbreak of alleged vampire attacks in East Prussia in 1721 and in the Habsburg monarchy from 1725 to 1734, which spread to other localities. [...] The problem was exacerbated by rural epidemics of so-called vampire attacks, undoubtedly caused by the higher amount of superstition that was present in village communities, with locals digging up bodies and in some cases, staking them.

I gotta refer you here back to Chapter 14 last week, in which we discussed a Romanian incident of this nature that happened in 2003. Meanwhile, back in the 18th century, some real-true vampire history is unfolding: this panic was the subject of Dom Augustine Calmet's classic Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants of Hungary, Moravia, et al. ("Numerous readers, including both a critical Voltaire and numerous supportive demonologists interpreted the treatise as claiming that vampires existed.") The hysteria spread to Austria, where Empress Maria Theresa sent her personal physician to sort this shit out; there is a movie somewhere to be made about Gerard van Swieten, Vampire Hunter. Except for the fact that he came to the conclusion that vampires were bullshit in his report, Discourse on the Existence of Ghosts; as a result, Maria Theresa decreed that her subjects must stop digging up corpses and doing unfortunate vampire-hunter things to them. (Or is that just what they wanted us to think??) "Dr. Johnson's" definition of vampyres as German could have been referring to any/all of the Controversy, and it has more real-life historical basis than Vampyres of Norway. So I'll allow it. *gavel*

by which you perceive how many vampyres, from time immemorial, must have been well entertained at the expense of John Bull, at the court of St. James, where nothing hardly is to be met with but German blood-suckers.

Wait, what?

Is this referring to young Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, being German? Is this like the mystifying snark about "German princes" earlier? Have I finally cracked this? British citizens were chortling over their penny papers at such political humor, I guess?

Meanwhile, the Admiral is bellowing; the lawyer is stammering. What we come to understand, after all my digressions about German vampyres, is:

Josiah Crinkles didn't write this letter.

And he has no idea who did. He's only heard of Admiral Bell "as one of those gallant officers who have spent a long life in nobly fighting their country's battles, and who are entitled to the admiration and the applause of every Englishman." Well, when you put it that way: Jack and the Admiral decide that Josiah Crinkles, Esq., is a fine and honorable gentleman, even if he is a lawyer! I sure hope you didn't have anywhere you meant to go today!

"No. I'm d -- -- d if you go like that," said Jack, as he sprang to the door, and put his back against it. "You shall take a glass with me in honour of the wooden walls of Old England, d -- -e ["damn me"?], if you was twenty lawyers."

Uh, slow down with the false imprisonment there. What Josiah does know is a little bit about the Bannerworth family, by which I mean everything, and we're gonna hear all about it, again, because James Malcolm Rymer got bills.

There is still another 1700 words left in this chapter, by the way.

"Shiver my timbers!" said Jack Pringle, [...] -- "Shiver my timbers, if I knows what a wamphigher is, unless he's some distant relation to Davy Jones!"

Jack Pringle's interpretations of the word "vampyre" is maybe my favorite thing about the entire serial.

Jack and the Admiral bickering for another 300 words is maybe my least favorite thing about the entire serial. WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO HEAR ABOUT THE VAMPYRE? "It appears that one night Miss Flora Bannerworth, a young lady of great beauty, and respected and admired by all who—Jack and the Admiral are still bickering. Nobly, Josiah Crinkles continues to recap chapters 1 and 2 for us (in fairness, this may have actually been helpful to penny dreadful readers in 1845). But what of the Admiral's nephew? Josiah knows nothing, much less what was written in the letter. You'd think it was Varney being nefarious, except that I don't know how he would know anything about Charles, either. One wonders who might.

[A couple hundred words of bickering]

The Admiral asks Josiah what he would do about a nephew who "has got a liking for this girl, who has had her neck bitten by a vampyre, you see."

[Josiah:] "Taking, my dear sir, what in my humble judgment appears a reasonable view of this subject, I should say it would be a dreadful thing for your nephew to marry into a family any member of which was liable to the visitations of a vampyre." "It wouldn't be pleasant." "The young lady might have children." "Oh, lots," cried Jack. "Hold your noise, Jack." "Ay, ay, sir." "And she might herself actually, when after death she became a vampyre, come and feed on her own children."

I did not remember any of this when I wrote the Consequences of Your Decision to Propagate the Family Stain section, and I'm starting to feel very smart for putting it in.

"Whew!" whistled Jack; "she might bite us all, and we should be a whole ship's crew o' wamphigaers. There would be a confounded go!"

For some reason, this bit is just absolutely fucking iconic to me. Indeed, Jack. In case of wamphigaers, the go would be confounded.

The Admiral steels himself to see "to the very bottom of this affair, were it deeper than fathom ever sounded. Charles Holland was my poor sister's son; he's the only relative I have in the wide world, and his happiness is dearer to my heart than my own." Having changed his mind about d-- -- d lawyers, Jack Pringle wishes Josiah Crinkles well, and he and the Admiral resolve to go find Charles at once—"our nevy," that is to say, "nephew," so—our nephew? Well, Jack and the Admiral definitely have an "argumentative life partners" vibe, be they employer and walley or not. So they'll go see Charles,

"see the young lady too, and lay hold o' the wamphigher if we can, as well, and go at the whole affair broadside to broadside, till we make a prize of all the particulars, arter which we can turn it over in our minds agin, and see what's to be done." "Jack, you are right. Come along."

As I've said, I did read halfway through the entire serial some ten years ago. These two are (give or take) 67% exhausting and 33% hilarious when deployed at just the right narrative moment. I'll run the numbers again once we're a few more chapters in.

Varney the Vampire masterpost

#varney the vampire #vampire studies #wampfaster wamplonger wamphigher #wamphigaers #a confounded go #vampires #long post #recaps

[cleolinda]

Varney the Vampire: Chapter 14

Chapter 13: Interview with the vampyre

This is a short chapter and also a good one. If you were a fan of Henry Bannerworth Knowing That He Is In Dracula, this is the chapter for you.

I'm going to tag this "cannibalism" for real-life reasons, and also "unreality" because I want to talk about an aspect of fiction that might not be great for you if you don't feel like you're on solid ground. I mean, if people are using that tag for Goncharov, this is the high-octane stuff.

Chapter XIV.

HENRY'S AGREEMENT WITH SIR FRANCIS VARNEY. -- THE SUDDEN ARRIVAL AT THE HALL. -- FLORA'S ALARM.

To catch you up, the Bannerworth family's new neighbor has offered to buy Bannerworth Estate, since the family obviously will not want to live there now that a mysterious vampyre is harassing them by night. Upon arriving at the neighbor's house, Henry Bannerworth discovers that said neighbor: is the fucking vampyre. Like just chilling there, in a dim room, vampyring. Henry promptly starts having a very apparent breakdown, all while his kinda-uncle Marchdale is like, "Shhhhh, Henry, it's rude to tell people they're vampyres."

I. Still interviewing the vampyre

The unnamed servant brings the unnamed refreshments that Sir Francis has called for—unnamed but for "a glass of wine."

"You take nothing yourself?" said Henry. "I am under a strict regimen," replied Varney. "The simplest diet alone does for me, and I have accustomed myself to long abstinence." "He will not eat or drink," muttered Henry, abstractedly.

I grew up with the impression, and you may have too, that vampires specifically don't like wine, but why? I spent way too long googling this without getting a solid answer, as you will remember from our Public Domain Wine Dot Com digression. But I have finally learned that the "I never drink......... wine" thing was not in Stoker's Dracula, nor anything before it; much the way that Nosferatu (1922) introduced the concept of sunlight crisping vampires, it was the Balderston-Deane play adaptation (1924) that introduced the line, which was then adapted by Tod Browning for the screen (1931):

Both the line as written and Bela Lugosi's delivery put an outsized emphasis on it being wine. He could have been saying he didn't drink coffee after dinner. I'm spending an hour on google trying to figure out if it has anything to do with communion wine—nope. It ain't blood. That's all. As Henry points out, Varney doesn't eat or drink, period, and that's the underlying premise here. Because, you know. He's dead. That is the story that James Malcolm Rymer has going at this point in time, and he might or might not stick with it.

I'll wrap this segment up by noting that Henry is absolutely sure that the painting and the person are the same, because they both bear "the mark or cieatrix [a transcriber mistyped cicatrix?] of a wound in the forehead, which the painter had slightly indented in the portrait, but which was much more plainly visible on the forehead of Sir Francis Varney." A cicatrix—[sic]atrix?—is just a scar. The dude has a telltale scar.

II. Will u sell the house tho

Varney still has real estate on his mind (one wonders if this gave Stoker any ideas):

"I cannot yet," answered Henry, "I will think. My present impression is, to let you have it on whatever terms you may yourself propose, always provided you consent to one of mine." "Name it." "That you never show yourself in my family." "How very unkind. I understand you have a charming sister, young, beautiful, and accomplished. Shall I confess, now, that I had hopes of making myself agreeable to her?"

OH

NOOOOOOOOO

This is already bad for both Flora and her devoted Charles Holland, obviously, but you have to remember that Varney was inspired by the template of Polidori's Lord Ruthven, who was, pop-culturally, the Dracula of his time. And (SPOILER), the way the story ends is that Our Hero Aubrey is unable to prevent Lord Ruthven, who he has discovered to be a vampyre, from marrying, murdering, and vampyring his sister:

When on the staircase, Lord Ruthven whispered in his ear—"Remember your oath, and know, if not my bride to day, your sister is dishonoured. Women are frail!"

That is to say, in the context of 1819 rather than the consumptive Victorian "angel of the house" trope, morally "frail": the unnamed sister was willing to have premarital sex with Ruthven. Meanwhile, Aubrey has a literal rage stroke and is unable to tell anyone what Ruthven is, until after the marriage has been solemnized. These are the actual final lines of the story:

Aubrey's weakness increased; the effusion of blood produced symptoms of the near approach of death. He desired his sister's guardians might be called, and when the midnight hour had struck, he related composedly what the reader has perused—he died immediately after. The guardians hastened to protect Miss Aubrey; but when they arrived, it was too late. Lord Ruthven had disappeared, and Aubrey's sister had glutted the thirst of a VAMPYRE!

Welp. We're gonna need to call in some wellness checks on Henry, I think. But notice that we are in the 1840s—the Victorian era—now, and Flora has thoroughly been coded as both pure (to possibly a racist degree) and physically frail (except for when she's blasting vampyres). We are assured over and over that Flora is the very soul of goodness, and entirely worthy of that paragon of manhood, Charles Holland. I think the two of them might be in for some trouble, but it won't be "moral" temptation. Probably.

"You make yourself agreeable to her? The sight of you would blast her for ever, and drive her to madness." "Am I so hideous?" "No, but -- you are -- " "Hush, Henry, hush," cried Marchdale. "Remember you are in this gentleman's house."

Marchdale manages to drag Henry away before he can insult the vampyre who wants to continue stalking Henry's sister any further, because that would just be uncouth.

"Adieu," said Sir Francis Varney, and he made one of the most elegant bows in the world, while there came over his face a peculiarity of expression that was strange, if not painful, to contemplate.

Peculiar in what way? I have filed this away for later.

III. Coping: not even once

"Marchdale, it would be charity of some one to kill me."

"This man, Varney, is a vampyre." "Hush! hush!"

"I tell you, Marchdale," cried Henry, in a wild, excited manner, "he is a vampyre. He is the dreadful being who visited Flora at the still hour of midnight, and drained the life-blood from her veins. He is a vampyre. There are such things. I cannot doubt now. Oh, God, I wish now that your lightnings would blast me, as here I stand, for ever into annihilation, for I am going mad to be compelled to feel that such horrors can really have existence."

Honestly, I think half the problem is Marchdale telling him to shut up and not rock the boat. Everyone would feel a lot better if they could just gear up, ride out, and—

"Nay, talk not to me. What can I do? Shall I kill him? Is it not a sacred duty to destroy such a thing? Oh, horror -- horror. He must be killed -- destroyed -- burnt, and the very dust to which he is consumed must be scattered to the winds of Heaven. It would be a deed well done, Marchdale."

—yeah, that.

But how do you just go do that? This isn't Count Dracula, who lives in a spooky abbey and then flees home to his spooky castle and gets dealt with there. This is a dude who's going around the neighborhood being friendly and asking to buy estates. He's got servants, he's throwing around money on properties, he's trying to court your sister. How do you just go in and murderate him? What if, somehow, he's not a vampyre, and you were Extremely Mistaken the whole time, and now you're on trial for homicide?

Two examples from my taste in television come to mind:

One is the Hammersmith Ghost episode of Buzzfeed Unsolved: True Crime, in which a man decided to go hunt down and shoot a Boo Ghost™ harassing a district of London in 1804. It ended with one Francis Smith on trial for the murder of a bricklayer who happened to be wearing an unfortunate amount of white. I am sure Smith absolutely believed he was shooting a real ghost, right up until it became tragically apparent that the ghost hadn't already been dead.

The other one is the FASCINATING "Hunting Vampires" episode of Expedition Unknown, in which Josh Gates visits rural Romania to get scared by a cat and talk to a man who actually... well. Let me quote the fan wiki (content note: technically necrocannibalism?):

The next day, Josh meets Petra Rotar, a local journalist, and they drive to Craiova where they meet Daniela Barbu, a prosecutor. She had to charge six men who desecrated and exhumed the grave of Petre Toma. After Petre died villagers began to get sick and have nightmares with Petre in them. Six men went to the cemetery and pulled out Petre's heart, grilled it and prepared a potion from the ashes and everybody who was sick drank it. The villagers' jail term was suspended […] . Petra and Josh go to Marotinu de Sus and to the cemetery where they find Petre Toma's grave. Two angry villagers come but they are able to calm down and one of the men, Florin, is related to a man who dug up the body. Florin and Josh row across a lake to meet Florin's cousin Mitrica Mircea, where Mitrica [one of the six men] recounts the story for them and believes what he did was the right thing.

Like. This happened:

'No one is bothered who did it, it's their own business,' declared 80-year-old Tudor Stoica, shading his face with a fraying hat. 'This ritual often takes place, but in secret, within the family. The problem comes when the police get involved.'

This happened! And they're all sure they're doing the right thing! And I'm tagging this post "unreality," so if you have issues with certain kinds of ideations, I'm gonna say skip down to the next pull quote, but I'm trying to describe a certain quality in fiction: 

Of course I want to say that Mitrica Mircea wasn't doing the right thing, this is real life, there are no vampires to go around staking. But it's a funny thing, how people in genre fiction have to realize they're in genre fiction and things are real, and people in real life have to remember they're in real life and things aren't real, but also, the nature of consciousness is such that a fictional character might express the belief that they live in the real world, and a real person might find themselves in a traumatic moment thinking, This feels just like a movie. Do you ever find yourself in real life saying, "This feels like that moment in movies where the characters don't believe in monsters, and that's why they get eaten?" Can you, then, understand a character in fiction going through the same thing? I can't believe this is really happening, but it is.

Except that they are wrong, because it is fiction.

But they can't know that.

I feel fairly confident of my reality, and I'm confident none of my neighbors need to be staked. But I'll stop there in case anyone else isn't.

"Yes; but reflect, Henry, for a moment upon the length to which you might [have to] carry out so dangerous an argument. It is said that vampyres are made by vampyres sucking the blood of those who, but for that circumstance, would have died and gone to decay in the tomb along with ordinary mortals; but that being so attacked during life by a vampyre, they themselves, after death, become such." "Well -- well, what is that to me?" "Have you forgotten Flora?" A cry of despair came from poor Henry's lips, and in a moment he seemed completely, mentally and physically, prostrated. "God of Heaven!" he moaned, "I had forgotten her!"

H E N R Y.

IV. Marchdale what is your deal

Kinda-Sorta Uncle Marchdale pleads with Henry to not curl up and die because Flora needs him! Possibly to stake her someday! No, Marchdale, Flora has Charles Holland now! HUMPH, says Marchdale to that. As you will recall, Marchdale and Charles Holland loathed each other on sight for literally, in the literal sense of literally, no reason, and Marchdale stands by that:

"I, therefore, now prophecy to you that Charles Holland will yet be so stung with horror at the circumstance of a vampyre visiting Flora, that he will never make her his wife."

Bro, why are you like this. On one hand, Henry insists that Charles Holland is the soul of honor:

"You are, you may depend, entirely wrong. I cannot be deceived in Charles. From you such words produce no effect but one of regret that you should so much err in your estimate of any one. From any one but yourself they would have produced in me a feeling of anger I might have found it difficult to smother."

On the other hand, one might perhaps become concerned that the text keeps raising the issue of whether Charles Holland is trustworthy or not.

V. Anyway, when do we kill him

Henry and Marchdale agree that they won't tell the family that their new neighbor is the vampyre stalking Flora, because that always works out just fine. Marchdale declares, in fact, that there is no way that "this Sir Francis Varney, or whatever his real name may be, will obtrude himself upon you." Obviously, Varney will be intruding on them anon. Should he try such a thing, Henry announces that he will kill Varney really most sincerely dead:

"It would be fatal, so help me, Heaven; and then would I take especial care that no power of resuscitation should ever enable that man again to walk the earth." [Marchdale, very helpfully:] "They say the only way of destroying a vampyre is to fix him to the earth with a stake, so that he cannot move, and then, of course, decomposition will take its course, as in ordinary cases." "Fire would consume him, and be a quicker process," said Henry.

Well, I hope to fuck that they know where the matches are.

Varney the Vampire masterpost

#varney the vampire #unreality #cannibalism #vampires #vampire studies #long post #video

[cleolinda]

Varney the Vampire: Chapter 11

Chapter 10: A wild Charles Holland appears!

A brief unexpected hiatus there for a week or so. Onward!

If you're just joining us, an ancestral vampyre has been victimizing fair maiden Flora Bannerworth, and it is the worst thing that has ever happened to her brothers Henry and George. Truly, nothing could be worse than having a sister bitten by a vampyre; let us mope upon it in the family crypt with some friends. The friends have matches. Meanwhile, Flora just shot the motherfucker.

CHAPTER XI.

THE COMMUNICATION TO THE LOVER. -- THE HEART'S DESPAIR.

As I've said, you can summarize Varney the Vampire very concisely if you really want to. In this chapter, Henry takes Flora's newly-returned kinda-fiancé aside and explains him a thing. Less concisely: That thing is a vampyre, one Ancestor von Spookyportrait, who keeps preying on Flora and repeatedly getting his hapless ass shot for it. But what you have to understand is, there is not a goddamn thing about Varney the Vampire that is concise. I would even argue that the spirit of verbosity—the baroque grammatical vibe, if you will—is more the point of this godforsaken thing than the actual plot is.

Consternation is sympathetic, and any one who had looked upon the features of Charles Holland, now that he was seated with Henry Bannerworth, in expectation of a communication which his fears told him was to blast all the dearest and most fondly cherished hopes for ever, would scarcely have recognised in him the same young man who, one short hour before, had knocked so loudly, and so full of joyful hope and expectation, at the door of the hall.

I myself am long-winded. Game recognizes game.

It would be one thing, Charles Holland thinks to himself, if Flora were just a trifling-ass strumpet. At least then he could get mad about it, his pride would shield him—but no, he is convinced that his angelic maiden fair back there is trying to protect him from something. As he should be, because it's not like it was hard to tell or anything.

Happier would it at that time have been to Charles Holland had she acted capriciously towards him, and convinced him that his true heart's devotion had been cast at the feet of one unworthy of so really noble a gift.

James Malcolm Rymer really builds up what a sterling hero—verily, a textbook cinnamon roll—Charles Holland is. At first you might think Charles Holland is his cherished self-insert, or maybe Rymer is even a little in love with him, as perhaps all writers should be with our own characters. But if I remember correctly, there's a more interesting reason he does this. But I get ahead of myself (my favorite thing to do).

But now he was to hear all. Henry had promised to tell him, and as he looked into his pale, but handsomely intellectual face, he half dreaded the disclosure he yet panted to hear.

Okay, “panting,” Rymer, don't be weird about it. Also, please use some names in this paragraph; I am pretty sure that Charles Holland is the Pale But Handsome one, which renders this "he" salad nonsensical.

Charles Holland begs to be told the truth! Henry avers that he will tell it, no matter how dubious or strange! Speak truly, Charles Holland, did you indeed hear Flora breaking up with you two pages ago? Why, yes, of course I did, Henry, I did! Then you will be shocked my sister broke up with you! Forsooth, I am! You know who actually wrote this? I've figured it out—energy vampire Colin Robinson.

Because just the act of describing this is sucking my will to live, and I'm not even sure why. Like, it's fine? It's not terribly onerous to read? It's just... so... it feels so much like long covid fatigue, I can't even tell you. NO! We can do this!

"She was right. She is a noble-hearted girl for uttering those words. A dreadful incident in our family has occurred, which might well induce you to pause before uniting your fate with that of any member of it."

Hold onto that "don't unite your fate with ours" thought, because it's an ugly one and we'll get to it. Right now, Charles Holland declares that nothing can ever change his feelings for Flora, ain't no mountain high enough, so on and so forth. What change of fortune could have occurred for Henry to think so?

"I will tell you, Holland. In all your travels, and in all your reading, did you ever come across anything about vampyres?"

Ah, shit, here we go.

"You may well doubt the evidence of your own ears, Charles Holland, and wish me to repeat what I said several more times. I say, do you know anything about vampyres?"

They go back and forth a while about the shocking fact of believing such a shocking fact, but finally, Henry has processed his circumstances: he, Henry von Spookyportrait Beaumont Bannerworth III, is experiencing the worst thing humanity has ever endured:

"Listen to me, and do not interrupt me. You shall know all, and you shall know it circumstantially." Henry then related to the astonished Charles Holland all that had occurred, from the first alarm of Flora, up to that period when he, Holland, caught her in his arms as she was about to leave the room.

I am fucking shocked that Rymer did not have Henry recap this at actual length. "And approximately four to five people also saw all of this!" And Rymer does not have all of those people file in and give sworn testimony in real time. Like, that's surely an entire mortgage payment he just passed up, or else he got into a fistfight with his publisher and lost.

"You bewilder me, utterly," said Charles Holland. "As we are all bewildered." "But -- but, gracious Heaven! it cannot be." "It is." "No -- no. There is -- there must be yet some dreadful mistake."

"No, no! By Heaven, no!" "Yes, Charles. Reflect upon the consequences now of a union with such a family."

Wait, Henry, what the fuck do you mean by that?

"That one who has been visited by a vampyre, and whose blood has formed a horrible repast for such a being, becomes, after death, one of the dreadful race, and visits others in the same way."

Two points:

What are the Vampire Rules in Varney the Vampire? We now know that it only takes (one?) bite to infect someone with vampirism—no exchange of vampire blood is needed. Allegedly. Rymer will probably forget about this.

"Dreadful race" is a real interesting word to use about something that is supernaturally contagious rather than hereditary. On the other hand, Rymer's been implying that Varney is Flora's ancestor, hasn't he? The shame of vampirism is in both her bloodline and, now, her actual blood.

At the same time, here comes the ugly thought to unpack. [Content note: mental health ableism, undescribed self harm and suicide in fiction, racism. If you'd like to skip this very long section, scroll down/search for "Charles Holland is a man of action."]

For decades if not centuries (and, I would argue, still today as well), there have been persistent ideas that mental health issues 1) inevitably led to violence and chaos; 2) were inevitably hereditary; and 3) weren't exclusive to "impure" bloodlines, but, short version: "savagery," colonialism, racism. And all this coalesces into the idea of the Family Stain. In a book like Jane Eyre, published the same year as the collected Varney, Charlotte Brontë evokes a family who "tricks" Rochester into marrying a woman coded as biracial who has apparently inherited a family mental illness. In this character, Charlotte Brontë chooses to identify insanity with violence (and, implicitly, with race), to the point that imprisoning Bertha in an attic is presented as "merciful." And honestly, given the state of mental healthcare up through the 20th century, given the real-life prevalence of this identification, it probably was. This is the cultural foundation beneath Henry's warning of "the consequences of such a union."

But let's delve deeper into the word "consequences." There's also a Louisa May Alcott serial from her "blood and thunder" days called "A Nurse's Story" (1865), and while it was published twenty years after Varney the Vampire, it makes those assumed consequences explicit: point #2 above, the inevitable "curse" of mental illness spreading to a patient's children. (I want to stop here and tell you that I'm bipolar. Medicated, very stable, not cursed. I've been very open about this for many years. I want you to read this paragraph knowing that I personally know that what follows is bullshit.) The story's narrator, Kate Snow, is hired to be the caretaker for a young woman who has started to present symptoms of the Family Stain, hereditary insanity, and has begun to self-harm as a result. By the end of the story, Elinor has actually died by suicide; I won't even go into the details because the story (dangerously) portrays her death as a tragic but noble act.

Elinor also has two older brothers who have sworn to die single (one has become a priest; the other is self-medicating with unspecified substance abuse, probably alcohol), so that they don't pass the family illness to any children. Unfortunately, there is a fourth sibling, Amy, who is determined to keep the secret and marry. (She dies within two years of her wedding, reports the epilogue.) Even better, there's a second family stain—the siblings are all actually illegitimate, because their father has a living first wife that he abandoned! And his son from that marriage, when not busy blackmailing the family, falling in love with Kate, and twirling his mustache, will also develop the hereditary insanity!

I'll be real with you, I actually love this story. It's got the psychological screw-turns that make a lot of Alcott's Very Problematic guilty pleasure stories so engaging, and (aside from the ableist premise rotting there at the core), the characters are portrayed with compassion. Kate stays with the family, villainous legitimate son included, as a loyal friend; the initial setup with Elinor was apparently based on Alcott's own experiences as a nurse/companion, and she has a great deal more sympathy for her characters than a lot of gothic-leaning writers. What "A Nurse's Story" illustrates for us, though, is how concretely mental illness was viewed as a family stain on the level of an original sin, something no one will ever escape, that will make even the kindest people erupt in violence, and something that must be prevented from propagating at all costs.

Like I said, though: I'm bipolar. I of all people know that these tropes are bullshit, and dangerous bullshit at that. I still love this story. Jane Eyre is one of my favorite books. We contain multitudes; we just also have to critique those multitudes. That's why I'm here writing thousands of words about this absurd vampire serial in the first place.

Now: let's take those ideas and jump back over to Varney:

"There may be insanity in this family," thought Charles, with such an exquisite pang of misery that he groaned aloud.

There may be insanity in this family, thought the potential father of Flora's children.

"Already," added Henry, mournfully, "already the blighting influence of the dreadful tale is upon you, Charles. Oh, let me add my advice to Flora's entreaties. She loves you, and we all esteem you; fly, then, from us, and leave us to encounter our miseries alone. Fly from us, Charles Holland, and take with you our best wishes for happiness which you cannot know here." "Never," cried Charles; "I devote my existence to Flora. I will not play the coward, and fly from one whom I love, on such grounds. I devote my life to her."

You're probably wondering why I brought racism up as well, ten million words ago. Well, because I think Rymer has given us visual cues as to why the noble Charles Holland is right to remain loyal to Flora. She's been coded as immune to any kind of metaphorical "stain," whether she's covered in blood or not. Look back at the very first chapter:

Now she moves, and one shoulder is entirely visible -- whiter, fairer than the spotless clothing of the bed on which she lies, is the smooth skin of that fair creature

Rymer intends us to understand Flora is intrinsically worthy of her fiancé's devotion: she is as white as the spotless bedlinen that she's being fetishized on. And I wish this were only a visual metaphor using the color spectrum of electromagnetic light, but I think we all know that the Victorians were racist as fuck. Readers of 1847 would have understood, consciously or not, the assurance of Flora's "fairness" that way. She's whiter than white; she might die nobly, but Charles Holland won't have to stuff her in the attic.

What I want to critique in this serial, to separate out, is to what extent Flora is presented as a heroine because of her whiteness, and to what extent that comes from her actions, such as shooting a vampire while everyone else is moping around a crypt. I think it could be incredibly useful to identify this, especially if you yourself are a writer, and infinitely more so if you are (like me) a white writer, to study what kind of bullshit you want to avoid in your work. (For that matter, ableism is another form of bullshit to to examine and avoid.) I'm going to be honest with you, writing about Twilight taught me more about characterization than any of the dozen writing classes I ever took, because I sat down on Livejournal and observed every single thing that I thought made Bella Swan annoying as hell, or Edward Cullen creepy as fuck (what I should have observed more: the werewolf "lore" being destructively racist), and I made mental notes: Do the Opposite of That. Now that I've found myself here in the middle of these tropes, that's what we're going to do. And if anyone ever adapts this for television, I would recommend that they cast Flora as a different race, but with the exact same "gentle maiden" personality, and portray a purity and sweetness that have nothing to do with skin color, no matter what Hunger Games fans thought.

But back to the story. Charles Holland is a man of action. Charles Holland has plans.

"Look you here, Henry: until I am convinced that some things have happened which it is totally impossible could happen by any human means whatever, I will not ascribe them to supernatural influence." "But what human means, Charles, could produce what I have now narrated to you?" "I do not know, just at present, but I will give the subject the most attentive consideration. Will you accommodate me here for a time?"

-- He is going to converse with Flora upon the subject

-- He will say nothing to add to her fears thereunto

-- He will touch base re: a paradigm shift with Henry's brother George, Mr. Marchdale, and Mr. Dr. Chillingworth to move the needle on some core competencies

-- He will tell Henry to buck up, until yea, Henry does rejoice in his command of executive function

And Charles Holland is able to do all this because Henry unwittingly Said A Thing: if there's "such a weight of evidence in favour of a belief in the existence of vampyres" that they are compelled to believe in their local ancestral vampyre, CHILLINGWORTH—then that means they can catch it. "It consists," not to put too fine a point on it, "of a revivified corpse," and in that case, Charles Holland would like a motherfucker to try it:

"By Heaven! if ever I catch a glimpse of any such thing, it shall drag me to its home, be that where it may, or I will make it prisoner."

FROM THE DESK OF CHARLES HOLLAND - ACTIONABLE ITEMS

-- The squad will take turns watching over Flora

-- All intrepid protectors will be ready to defend her, potentially with swords and/or crowbars

-- They will have the means of alerting the entire household to any unregulated vampyring

-- There will be a healthy and well-balanced schedule to make sure no one is overly deprived of sleep

-- He's gonna have a roster and everything

-- Forsooth, where is the coffee pot

Meanwhile, Henry's like, oh thank God, someone who knows what he's doing. When Charles Holland says he wants to sleep in the Vampyre Room, in hopes that maybe Sir Ancestor actually will drop by again, Henry is more than happy to show him right in.

I don't think Rymer meant this to sound as creepy as it does, but blowing up the word count by iterating over and over that Charles Holland wants to sleep in Flora's room, exactly the way she left it, with nothing removed, for reasons of his own, results in an unintended (unless...?) ick factor. Spoiler: The reason ends up being, to look at the Von Spookyportrait likeness. That's all. Probably.

In theory, Varney recaps go up on Fridays. I'd like to have the next one up before Dracula Daily kicks off again on May 5th. Send thoughts and vamprayers to me.

Varney the Vampire masterpost

#varney the vampire #gifs #content notes: #mental health #ableism #racism #self harm cw #suicide cw #victorian bullshit #vampire studies