Vampires and resurrection men: the perils and pleasures of the embodied past in 1840s sensational fiction.
This essay examines embodied representations of the past in two of the most popular penny serials of the 1840s, G.W.M. Reynolds's "The Mysteries of London" and James Malcolm Rymer's "Varney the Vampyre; or, The Feast of Blood." The cadaverous "Resurrection man" of "The Mysteries" and Sir Francis Varney the Vampire -- both villains figured as irrepressible, resurrected corpses -- corporealize the inescapable return of personal and political history. Functioning as shadowy doubles of their serials' virtuous heroes, these corpse-villains trouble melodramatic distinctions between virtue and vice, and their own deeply contradictory histories disrupt their novels' engagements with historical presence and historical agency.
San Francisco State Univ.
Sara
S
Hackenberg
D002102:Cadaver; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D049672:History, 19th Century; D009026:Mortality / Q000208:ethnology / Q000266:history; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000266:history; D011642:Publications / Q000266:history; D012924:Social Conditions / Q000266:history; D012945:Social Values / Q000208:ethnology; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000208:ethnology; D014754:Violence / Q000208:ethnology / Q000266:history / Q000523:psychology; D028722:Virtues