<Tr> <Th> Media type </Th> <Td> Print </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Pages </Th> <Td> 876 (book) </Td> </Tr> <P> Varney the Vampire; or, the Feast of Blood is a Victorian era serialized gothic horror story variously attributed to James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest . It first appeared in 1845--1847 as a series of weekly cheap pamphlets of the kind then known as "penny dreadfuls". The author was paid by the typeset line so when the story was published in book form in 1847, it was of epic length: the original edition ran to 876 double - columned pages and 232 chapters . Altogether it totals nearly 667,000 words . </P> <P> Despite its inconsistencies, Varney the Vampire is more or less a cohesive whole . It is the tale of the vampire Sir Francis Varney, and introduced many of the tropes present in vampire fiction recognizable to modern audiences . It was the first story to refer to sharpened teeth for a vampire, noting "With a plunge he seizes her neck in his fang - like teeth ." </P>

Varney the vampyre is an example of this type of 19th century weekly publication