Varney the Vampire
Varney the Vampire, or The Feast of Blood was first published as a serial, in weekly installments from 1845-1847 in the so-called "penny dreadful" of the era. "Penny dreadfuls" were weekly serials printed in pamphlet form on paper made from cheap wood pulp. They were geared chiefly at young working-class men during the Victorian era and featured either reprints of Gothic classics or tales that had large amounts of horror and gore. When it was collected and printed in book form, Varney the Vampire consisted of 232 separate chapters and 876 double-columned pages. It is over 650,000 words long. Although authorship of Varney the Vampire was disputed for a long time, many scholars now believe it to be a collaboration between James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest. Varney was very popular in its day and influenced many later depictions of vampires in fiction such as Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Many of the tropes that are seen in modern vampire fiction have their origins not in Hungarian or Romanian folklore, but with Varney the Vampire. Sir Francis Varney was the first vampire to be depicted with fang-like teeth. In addition, he was the first to have superhuman strength and hypnotic powers as well. In addition, he was the first vampire who was shown attacking women in their sleep by sneaking through their windows. Up until Varney the Vampire, vampires were usually depicted as the returning spirits of wives or lovers, or, in the case of Lord Ruthven, a serial seducer of women. However, Varney does not have some of the weaknesses that modern-day vampires do. Garlic and crosses have no effect on him. He can also move around in the daylight (The idea that vampires are killed by sunlight was invented by F.W. Murnau in his film Nosferatu, when Count Orlock is killed by sunlight at the film's end). In addition, Varney is the first of the "sympathetic" vampire characters that has become popular in many modern-day vampires works like The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice and, of course, Twilight.
To say that the plot to Varney the Vampire is confusing is a massive understatement. Originally stated to have been set in the early 1700s, there are many references to the Napoleonic Wars a century later. The story changes setting from London to Bath to Winchester to Naples to Venice. The main plot consists of Sir Francis Varney, the vampire, continually harassing and attacking members of the Bannerworth family, a wealthy family who has fallen on hard times due to the death of its patriarch. However, his motive is never made quite clear. At times it is to feed on their blood and other times, it is monetary. It's implied that he's an ancestor by the name of Marmaduke or Runnagate Bannerworth (both names are used in the text). At times, Varney is a literal vampire, and, at other times, he is depicted as a man who just believes he is a vampire. Varney himself dies and is resurrected several times so he has many origin stories. At the end of the text, Varney, disgusted with being a vampire, commits suicide by jumping into a live volcano in Italy.