Free Thinking

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Free Thinking: Vampires and the Penny Dreadful

Vampires and the Penny Dreadful

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Vampires and the Penny Dreadful

Matthew Sweet, Joan Passey, Roger Luckhurst and Sam George look at Varney the Vampire

Blood, melodrama and sentimentality: Matthew Sweet and guests look at the Victorian template for Dracula, Varney the Vampire, a gothic horror story serialised in penny dreadfuls.

Varney the Vampire was a blood-soaked gothic horror story serialised in cheap print over the course of a couple of years in the nineteenth century. The resulting "penny dreadful" tale spilled out of a large volume when it was finally published in book form. In spite of his comfort with crosses, daylight and garlic, Varney's capacity to reflect on his actions made him an early model for Dracula. Matthew Sweet explores why a work, so often overlooked, was so important to the development of the vampire genre.

Roger Luckhurst is Professor in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of Gothic: an illustrated history and editor of The Cambridge companion to Dracula.

Joan Passey is a lecturer at the University of Bristol. She is the author of Cornish Gothic and editor of Cornish Horrors. And, she is a 2022 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio.  

Sam George is an Associate Professor at the University of Hertfordshire and is the convener of the Open Graves, Open Minds Gothic research project. Her books include:  In the Company of Wolves: Werewolves, Wolves, and Wild Children and Open Graves, Open Minds, Representations of the Vampire from the Enlightenment to the Present Day. 

Producer: Ruth Watts

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