Fans pick 89 books like Varney the Vampire

The most iconic and somehow most misrepresented vampire story of all time. I read this book because it was iconic and for no other reason. It was not long before I began to see this book's Christian themes and messages. Though the book may not be explicitly Christian, the influences and messages are most apparent in Mina Harker.

I loved how the character of Mina becomes a prototype of what people would eventually call “The Final Girl”, not because of her physical strength or survival instincts, but because of her unwavering faith in God. I knew this was essentially a story of good and evil, but I was wonderfully surprised by this being a story of faith vs flesh and corruption vs holiness.

I love that this book was the result of a dare! In 1816, eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley and three friends held a contest to see who could write the scariest story. Mary’s story—like her monster—has since taken on a life of its own and today permeates all forms of storytelling.

I find it amusing that my favorite version of the monster is the one Mel Brooks gave us in Young Frankenstein. I wonder what Mary Shelley would think if she knew how much her acceptance of a dare would change storytelling forever.

I like to revisit the original story from time to time to savor the gothic drama and flowery writing. If I’m reading it on a dark and stormy night, all the better.

I like books from guys who’ve traveled and been around a while before sitting down to write them. I suppose I’m one, but Graham Greene remains a hero of mine even though he died over twenty years ago. In this book, Greene masterfully creates the atmosphere of dark, damp, smoky post-war side streets in post-war Vienna.   

That the criminal element involves a crime syndicate selling diluted penicillin also appeals to me, as I’ve written three novels about fraud and corruption in the pharmaceutical industry.  

Green’s book led to a series of films, and this book's signature tune still resonates with me. 

A man is sent to visit a mysterious count in his secluded mountaintop fortress, where a diabolical plot unfolds, involving an attack on England using his Angels of Death, women under his hypnotic command. The man finds himself slowly becoming a prisoner, leading to his planning an escape and a race to stop the Count’s plot from unfolding.

Sound familiar? It is, essentially, the plot of Dracula. It is also the plot of Ian Fleming’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the tenth James Bond novel. If Count Dracula is the king of vampires, then James Bond is inarguably the king of spies.

This is a comprehensive anthology of non-Dracula short stories (although it does include Bram Stoker’s Dracula’s Guest!) covering the whole of the nineteenth century and beyond, including John Polidori’s The Vampyre and Sheridan le Fanu’s influential Carmilla.

It even has an extract from the hugely popular Victorian ‘penny dreadful’ Varney The Vampire, which is so awful that it’s hilarious.

If you’re interested in the literary roots of vampires, and Dracula in particular, I’d heartily recommend this nonfiction title. It delves into the origins of characters like the Count in earlier 19th-century texts and examines how and why Dracula became such a long-lasting cultural influence. It’s also very good on Bram Stoker’s life and less famous works.

British author George W. M. Reynolds had no qualms about stealing Sue’s idea and title and writing his own book called The Mysteries of London (1844-1846). I love this novel for its sensationalism, which caused it to be the ultimate Victorian bestseller, even outselling Dickens.

The novel brings together criminals, women forced into prostitution, murderers, crossdressers, and royalty. At the heart of it is the story of the Markham brothers, one good, one evil. We follow their paths as they interact with all the other people in London and become embroiled in conspiracies. One of them even ends up marrying royalty and ruling a small European country. Reynolds’ bold writing style and mastery of multiple plots makes this 2,500-page novel highly readable and shocking even today.

I dreamed for many years of writing a book about crime fiction. I’m primarily a crime novelist, but so was Julian Symons, and the experience of writing fiction is invaluable when discussing other writers and understanding what they were trying to do. I approached Oxford University Press, with a view to producing a Companion about the genre, comprising essays by writers including myself. This led to a fruitful meeting with an OUP editor and novelist, Michael Cox, but the project was stillborn when his American colleagues had commissioned just such a book, to be edited by Rosemary Herbert. Rosemary invited me to contribute twenty-odd essays to her Companion, and I found the work of my fellow contributors (including Symons) a delight to read.

This little-known French vampire novel, published in 1825, includes the first fully realized female vampire. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, a young Hungarian woman, Alinska, mysteriously turns into a vampire after a French soldier pledges his love to her, then abandons her. After becoming a vampire, she travels to France where her husband Edouard is now remarried and has a family. Unable to stop herself, she preys upon Edouard’s family. The story is remarkable for creating the first sympathetic vampire and being the first to associate vampirism with Eastern Europe. Bram Stoker may have known it or similar French novels. I love the character development here and the possibility that this novel inspired the entire vampire tradition, including Dracula, yet has been largely ignored until recently.

Set in the aftermath of the English Civil War; this is the fourth in Andrew Taylor’s bestselling series involving a government agent named James Marwood and his friend, Cat Lovett, who happens to be Oliver Cromwell’s daughter. In The Last Protector 1668 and Marwood and Lovett are on the trail of a mystery that goes back to the days of the republic, one quite literally hidden away in the bowels of the past, but also one which involves a very credible danger to both them individually and society at large. It’s gripping and immersive, and offers delicious personal and political jeopardy right up to the end.