Varney the Vampyre (What I'm Reading Now)

[Quasimodem]

I'm currently reading Varney the Vampyre; or The Feast of Blood, by James Malcolm Rymer which, if you're not familiar with it, at first sounds like a humorous "take" on Stoker's Dracula. But surprise! Varney's work predated Stoker's by about 50 years.

It appeared as a "penny dreadful" in the Victorian era, but Wiki says the mention of Napoleonic wars puts that in doubt.

No matter. It is a very enjoyable read, and it does feature some humorous characters whose dialogue is surprisingly funny and helps provide some comic relief.

This isn't my first enounter with Varney, having been assigned the novel as a choice back in my college days, but I chose Dickens' Nicholas Nickelby instead. By the way, if Rymer's style reminds you of Dickens, well, there you go. The author breaks away from the dialogue to speak to us about goings on which are elemental to the story, but aren't included as part of the dialogue, much like Dickens does.

So if you don't mind reading literature in the Gothic style, using antiquated words such as ejaculated rather than exclaimed, this is a totally enjoyable book. Best of all, it's on Kindle's free download list.

I know y'all don't usually do book reports, but I find this is therapeutic for me.

Thanks

Quasi