He's Undead--Wrapped in Plastic

Varney the Vampyre, probably by James Malcolm Rymer, is one of those books that is more significant than it is readable: a Nineteenth-Century gothic horror novel, two-thirds of a million words long, confused in its plot, setting and era; the quintessential penny dreadful, but very important in its influence on Dracula and other genuinely good books. Here are a few of the original illustrations:

So how best to republish this book in the modern era? Well, if you're an outfit called Borgo Press, you break it up into four expensive print-on-demand volumes, and give each one a cover that makes inexplicable use of Photoshop's 'plastic wrap' filter.

I wonder who the poor bugger is who played Varney for these covers.

Anyway, these covers made me feel like this: