Huge Horror Novels

[Silent Scream Queen]

What are the longest horror novels you know about?

The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition by Stephen King is apparently 1,152 pages long with a 514,827 word count.

It's not the longest however. In Victorian times they had what was known as Penny Dreadfuls. These were serials produced in weekly parts of 8 to 16 pages, each costing one penny, and they just went on and on, until the series ran out of steam, or author died.

One of these serials was Varney the Vampire. Varney created many of the common ideas we have about Vampires. He has fangs, can hypnotise people and is superhumanly strong. But he can go about in the day and the common methods of hurting a vampire don't work on him.

In the original edition of the novel version from 1847, it is 876 double-columned pages consisting of 232 chapters. So King's page length is longer but Varney has a word count of 667,000 words.

[Silent Scream Queen]

If you want a comparison of the sheer size of this War and Peace is listed as 600,000 words or so.

[endo]

I think the longest book I ever read, besides The Bible, is probably the unabridged version of The Stand. I used to read everything, no matter how many pages but nowadays I find it hard to concentrate for that long on one story.
I'm reading The Ruins right now and it's only 317 pages and I find my mind drifting at times. It's a pretty gripping story so it's not hard to get right back into it.

I don't think I'd even start a book as long as the ones you mentioned today, I prefer the short horror stories now. The Ruins is the first novel I've read in years actually.

Nice info though, thanks!

[Silent Scream Queen]

Varney isn't even the longest Penny Dreadful. Black Bess, or, The Knight of the road: a tale of the good old times, bound together in three volumes in 1868-69 comes in at a staggering 2,028 pages and a word count said to be 833,000 words.
It ran for five years and 254 parts.
The author, Edward Viles, appears also to had several companion volumes on the go at the same time, like The Black Highwayman (1866-1868) and The Ladies’ Highwayman (1864).
I seem to remember an even bigger one that was unfinished, but can't remember it's name.

[Silent Scream Queen]

Jan 13, 2022 12:53:35 GMT -5 endo said:

I think the longest book I ever read, besides The Bible, is probably the unabridged version of The Stand. I used to read everything, no matter how many pages but nowadays I find it hard to concentrate for that long on one story.

I'm having the same problem, recently I've started lots of books but I'm having trouble finishing them.

[NDX]

I've read a handful of books 1500 pages and over, but those are comic omnibuses so not much in the way of titanic word counts.

[Silent Scream Queen]

I found the larger Penny Dreadful I was thinking about.
It was called The Mysteries of London and was written, wait for it, over a period of 12 years.
it was in 624 weekly volumes.
I'm not sure you can count it as a novel as such, given its serial nature; it was probably a collection of adventures of a recurring cast of characters. As it was a Penny Dreadful it would dwell on the seedy, depraved side of life in the city.
There were three writers who worked on it over the course of its life. Apparently it had a serial killer in it called The Resurrection Man.
With the 12 year span in mind, anyone care to make a guess on its word length?

[Silent Scream Queen]

I decided to brave it, and give one of these Penny Dreadfuls a go.
The one I chose is The Mysteries of the Court of London by George M. W. Reynolds. It's by the same author that wrote the first 52 or so parts of The Mysteries of London. Which I couldn't find in my brief internet search.
It seems to have been huge too, it ran as a serial from 1848 to 1856, but this is Volume One only. It's 503 pages with 50 chapters. If I read a chapter or two a day I could probably finish in a month.
There is only one problem, I think it ends on a cliff hanger. I don't read endings of novels first ever, but took a quick glimpse at the last page to see if my suspicions about it not being a complete in itself volume were confirmed, and they seem to be.
So the question is should I risk it anyway?

Edited to say the last chapter is called The Poisoners.

[endo]

So, a cliffhanger in a novel that you didn't really plan on reading the sequel to? That would drive me crazy, I would now have to read the next one just to satisfy my OCD, which sucks, lol.

If you think you'd enjoy the series and enjoy the descriptions of the books, it might be worth just resigning yourself to the fact that you'll need to read the next one. My wife is doing that right now with the Left Behind series. Every one is a cliffhanger, pretty sneaky...
It would be nice to say if the book wasn't for me, no way I'm reading the next one, unfortunately I would have a tough time doing that. If you can, good for you and there's nothing to worry about.

[Silent Scream Queen]

As it's from a serial it could be a case that the book is nothing but cliffhangers.
I'll try a few chapters and see how it goes.

[Silent Scream Queen]

First chapter is done, so only 49 to go.
We learn of the crimes of forgery, murder, arson, and the flight of the alleged perpetrator.
I enjoyed it so on to the next one!