James Malcolm Rymer
James Malcolm Rymer was a prolific, yet enigmatic, Scottish writer born around 1814, noted for his contributions to Victorian literature, particularly in the realm of serial fiction. Initially a civil engineer, he transitioned to publishing and editing, notably serving as an editor for Queen's Magazine in 1842. Rymer is best recognized for his work on "penny dreadfuls," inexpensive and sensational serialized stories that captured the attention of a growing readership in 19th-century London. His most celebrated work, "Varney the Vampyre: Or, The Feast of Blood," ran from 1845 to 1847 and is credited with introducing the sympathetic villain-hero archetype, a concept later refined by Bram Stoker in "Dracula."
Despite his significant influence, much of Rymer’s life remains shrouded in mystery, with details about his biography and the full extent of his contributions often unclear. He also wrote under various pseudonyms, showcasing the common practice of the time among writers in the genre. Other notable works include "The Black Monk: Or, The Secret of the Grey Turret," and while he was once thought to have authored "The String of Pearls," it is now more accurately attributed to another writer. Rymer passed away in 1884, leaving behind a modest estate, and his works gained renewed interest in the late 20th century, particularly with the advent of the internet.
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James Malcolm Rymer
Author
- Born: c. 1814
- Birthplace: Scotland
- Died: 1884
- Place of death: Shepherd's Bush, London, England
Biography
James Malcolm Rymer is perhaps the most prolific writer in British literature about whom so little is known; even the work for which he is best known has not been definitively attributed to him, and the parts of it he did write are probably forever unattributable. His birth year is most often given as 1814, although 1804 is a possibility, and he was born in Scotland. Before becoming an author, he was a civil engineer, and in 1842 he became an editor for Queen’s Magazine, a monthly periodical.
Rymer then began writing for Edward Lloyd, the most successful producer (in this case, it seems a more accurate term than “publisher”) of the popular Victorian fictional form, the “penny dreadful,” a weekly serial named for its price and subject matter. Also known as “bloods” and “Salisbury Square” novels, after the location of Lloyd’s firm, the penny dreadful grew out of several elements: the Newgate novel, written about sensational crimes and criminals; the gothic novel, a respectable literary form dating from the end of the eighteenth century; the social reform novel, whose most famous practitioner was Charles Dickens; and sheer plagiarism. Dickens’s growing popularity led to penny knock- offs, such as Oliver Twiss. The dreadfuls were speedily and cheaply produced, with the ease of publication the result of more efficient printing presses. A rapidly growing number of readers who worked in the London metropolitan area stimulated the demand for these books. The initial penny dreadfuls often were distributed for free with those of another, more successful novel; sometimes, multiple numbers of these novels were sold for the price of one. If the novel proved popular, it was continued; if it did not sell well, the producers moved on to another tale. The method of writing seems to have been to come up with an initial incident and then expand it to the requisite number of lines for that publication.
Rymer’s most well-known work was written early in his career. Varney the Vampyre: Or, The Feast of Blood proved so successful that it ran for more than two years, from 1845 to 1847; the serial consisted of more than one hundred books and more than 230 chapters, with the work running to somewhere around half a million words. To call its plot episodic would be a compliment; to call its underlying mythology inconsistent, charitable. The main character is sometimes a vampire, sometimes just playing at being one, his powers ascribed to several sources.
Rymer’s chief accomplishment is the creation of the sympathetic villain-hero, a figure that Bram Stoker refined in Dracula (1897) and subsequently was adapted by many other authors. Rymer wrote under anagrammatic pseudonyms, such as Malcolm J. Merry, or Malcolm J. Errym. His other significant work is the supernatural novel, The Black Monk: Or, The Secret of the Grey Turret. For a time, The String of Pearls (1846), a serialized novel about Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street, was attributed to Rymer, but it more likely was the work of his fellow hack, Thomas Pecket Prest.
Rymer died in 1884 in Shepherds Bush, London, leaving an estate of some eight thousand pounds. Although immensely popular in its time, copies of Varney the Vampyre were extremely rare until the later part of the twentieth century, when the novel became available on the World Wide Web.