of Thomas Preskett Prest, a prolific writer of the fourth and fifth decades of the nineteenth century. It is true that his productions published by the well-known Edward Lloyd, of 231, Shoreditch,[67a] may be classed as simple “shockers,” but none the less he has considerable power in this kind, and he had at any rate the craft of telling his story with skill and address. There is a certain quality in his work, which appeared during the years from 1839 to the earlier fifties, that is entirely lacking in the productions of his fellows. To him have been ascribed, doubtless with some exaggeration, well nigh two hundred titles, but the following list comprises, I believe, his principal romances: Ela, the Outcast, or, the Gipsy of Rosemary Dell; Angelina, or, the Mystery of S. Mark’s Abbey, “a Tale of Other Days”; The Death Grasp, or, A Father’s Curse; Ernnestine De Lacy, or, The Robbers’ Foundling; Gallant Tom, or, The Perils of a Sailor Ashore and Afloat, “an original nautical romance of deep and pathetic interest”; Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (the most famous of Prest’s novels); Newgate (which has some capital episodes); Emily Fitzormond; Mary Clifford; The Maniac Father, or, The Victim of Seduction; Gertrude of the Rock; Rosalie, or, The Vagrant’s Daughter; The Miller’s Maid; Jane Brightwell; Blanche, or, The Mystery of the Doomed House; The Blighted Heart, or, The Priory Ruins; Sawney Bean, the Man-eater of Midlothian; The Skeleton Clutch, or, The Goblet of Gore; The Black Monk, or, The Secret of the Grey Turret[68]; The Miller and His Men, or, The Secret Robbers of Bohemia. To Prest also has been attributed, but I conceive without foundation, Susan Hoply, an audacious piracy upon the famous novel by Mrs. Crowe, Susan Hopley.
Varney the Vampire, or, The Feast of Blood, was first published in 1847. It contains no less than CCXX chapters and runs to 868 pages. The many incidents succeed each other with such breathless rapidity that it were well-nigh impossible to attempt any conspectus of the whole romance. The very length would make this analysis a work of extreme difficulty, and incidentally we may note the amazing copiousness of Prest which must ever remain a matter for wonderment. Such a romance, for example, as Newgate runs to no less than one hundred and forty-nine chapters comprising 772 pages. The Maniac Father has fifty-four chapters, each of considerable
