Varney the Vampire

The story has a confused setting. While ostensibly set in the early eighteenth century,[7] there are references to the Napoleonic Wars and other indicators that the story is contemporary to the time of its writing in the mid-nineteenth century. Varney's adventures also occur in various locations including London, Bath, Winchester and Naples.

The plot concerns the troubles that Sir Francis Varney inflicts upon the Bannerworths, a formerly wealthy family driven to ruin by their recently deceased father.[7] Initially the Bannerworths consist of Mrs Bannerworth and her adult children Henry, George, and Flora (George is never mentioned by name after the thirty-sixth chapter). A family friend, Mr Marchdale, lives with the Bannerworths in early chapters. Later, Flora's fiancé Charles Holland, his seafaring uncle Admiral Bell, and Bell's jovial assistant Jack Pringle also take residence with the Bannerworths.

Though the earliest chapters give the standard motives of blood sustenance for Varney's actions toward the family, later ones suggest that Varney is motivated by monetary interests. The story is at times inconsistent and confusing, as if the author did not know whether to make Varney a literal vampire or simply a human who acts like one. Varney bears a strong resemblance to a portrait in Bannerworth Hall, and the implication throughout is that he is actually Marmaduke Bannerworth (or Sir Runnagate Bannerworth; the names are confused throughout the story), but that connection is never clarified. He is portrayed as loathing his condition, and at one point he turns Clara Crofton, a member of another family he terrorizes, into a vampire for revenge.

Over the course of the book, Varney is presented with increasing sympathy as a victim of circumstances. He tries to save himself, but is unable to do so. He ultimately commits suicide by throwing himself into Mount Vesuvius, after having left a written account of his origin with a sympathetic priest.[7] According to Varney, he was cursed with vampirism after he betrayed a royalist to Oliver Cromwell, and subsequently killed his own son accidentally in a fit of anger.[7] He "dies" and is revived several times in the course of his career. This afforded the author a variety of origin stories. In one of these, a medical student named Dr. Chillingworth applies galvanism to Varney's hanged corpse and revives him. This sub-plot parallels the earlier story of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and film adaptations which introduce electricity as Dr. Frankenstein's means of creating the monster.