novella A Christmas Carol; however, Varney was not published until 1845, and the film's action is set in 1843. In 2021, Varney appears as a character in Castlevania season 4, as an alter ego of Death (voiced by Malcolm McDowell), used to operate beneath notice to advance his goals. Authorship The story was published by Edward Lloyd, whose policy was not to allow authors to put their name on their published work. Due to this there is disagreement over the authorship of many works published by his company. Varney the Vampire is generally considered to have been co-written by James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Preskett Prest. However, E. F. Bleiler has argued that Rymer is most likely the author due to the differences in how he wrote dialogue compared to Prest. Louis James also considered Rymer the most likely author, citing a piece of the manuscript in his handwriting. Footnotes References E. S. Turner's Boys Will be Boys (1948) discusses this story and many others. External links Varney the Vampyre The complete text at the University of Virginia Images and Illustrations from The Varney Image Page 1840s fantasy novels British Gothic novels British horror novels Penny dreadfuls Vampire novels Fictional vampires Fictional suicides Novels first published in serial form Literary characters introduced in 1845