Series:

Tales of Mystery & The Supernatural

2 total works

Cover of Varney the Vampyre
Bannerworth Hall, Hampshire. Midnight. The night is woken by screams, from the bedroom of the beautiful and noble-hearted Flora. To their horror, her family discover that she has been the victim of a murderous attack. The Bannerworths are about to lose their home, to pay the debts of their dead father. The hunt is for his missing gold on, but then they begin to have doubts about their repulsive, hissing new neighbour, Sir Francis Varney, who is so eager to purchase the hall - and to marry the fair Flora!

Their quest will take them from hall to charnel-house, and from village inn to deserted chancel. Can the Bannerworths - aided by Flora's fiance Charles Holland, Charles's uncle Admiral Bell, and the indomitable British Tar, Jack Pringle - defeat their terrible foe? and can they decipher the strange letter left by old Marmaduke Bannerworth, that seems to promise so much?

Varney, the Vampyre, is one of the greatest of the Victorian penny romances, by one of its finest exponents -- the inimitable James Malcolm Rymer. First serialised between 1845 and 1847, it is one of the world's most enjoyable reads. It is also one of the major sources for Stoker's later masterpiece, Dracula.

Cover of Sweeney Todd: The String of Pearls

Fully revised Second Edition. With a new Introduction and Bibliography by Dick Collins.

The exploits of Sweeney Todd, ‘The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’, have been recounted many times in plays, films and musicals, but the origins of the character largely were forgotten for many years. The String of Pearls - the original tale of Sweeney Todd, a classic of British horror - was first published as a weekly serial in 1846-7 by Edward Lloyd, the King of the Penny Dreadfuls. One of the earliest detective stories, it became an important source for Bram Stoker's Dracula, but it was after over 150 years of obscurity that it appeared first in book form in the Wordsworth edition published in 2005.

The one great mystery that has surrounded the book is who the author was - or was it possibly the work of more than one man? In his new introduction to this fully revised second edition, Dick Collins, by means of detailed research of contemporary records, has established finally the identity of the creator of this legendary figure.

So here is the original story of the terrifying owner of that famous London barber-shop, and the secret recipe for Mrs Lovett's delicious pies…