![]() ![]() He appeared in many iterations throughout the nineteenth century, most notably (and readably) in a disturbingly plausible story called “A String of Pearls” by (probably) James Malcom Rymer. ![]() The demystification of ghostly figures was common in Victorian penny fiction, showing how even minimally-educated readers rejected the superstitions of prior generations.Īnother character from penny dreadful lore still known to modern readers is Sweeney Todd the murderous barber. An 1863 penny dreadful titled Springheel’d Jack, Terror of London depicted the titular bogeyman not as supernatural, but as costumed figure in special boots. Springheeled Jack reportedly leapt into the paths of young servant girls to physically accost them, ran coaches off roads, and conducted similar mischief. One of the few penny dreadful characters still remembered today is the notorious London urban legend Springheeled Jack, who vaulted on his famous springy shoes straight into the public consciousness via news headlines in the 1830s. Bram Stoker even took a perennial penny dreadful favorite-the vampire-and emphasized the characters and psychology over shock value, though the story retains some visceral aspects of its penny dreadful Varney the Vampire predecessor. All had first printings in sturdy, well-bound books and sold to wealthier, arguably “high-brow” audiences. Frankenstein and his gothic monster predate the penny dreadfuls, while Jekyll and Hyde, Dracula and Dorian Gray sprang from the Victorian fin de siècle literary scene. These days, “penny dreadful” has become a catchall term referring to any macabre 19 th century(-ish) literature, although few actual penny dreadful characters have survived in the modern consciousness, perhaps because the booklets they were printed on disintegrated quickly. Their working-class audience had little patience for poetic imagery and foreign climes, so plots were distilled down to the “exciting bits only”. These weekly penny papers were intended to be disposable booklets of equally disposable stories, evolving out of passé gothic tropes, true crime narratives, and the stage melodramas of the time. The above are all actual plots of Victorian-era “penny dreadfuls,” a literary genre of sorts which evolved from the lurid crime broadsheets and atmospheric gothic fiction popular in the 1700s. The execution of a handsome yet murderous rogue.ĭoes that sound like an epic reading list? Congratulations, you might be a Victorian. A vampire preying on defenseless virgins. A bodysnatcher unearthing corpses at midnight. ![]()
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