Penny Dreadful
Encyclopedia
A penny dreadful was a type of British
fiction publication in the 19th century that usually featured lurid serial stories appearing in parts over a number of weeks, each part costing an (old) penny
. The term, however, soon came to encompass a variety of publications that featured cheap sensational fiction, such as story paper
s and booklet "libraries". The penny dreadfuls were printed on cheap pulp
paper and were aimed primarily at working class
adolescents.
(which cost a shilling
[twelve pennies]) for working class adults, but by the 1850s the serial stories were aimed exclusively at teenagers. The stories themselves were reprints or sometimes rewrites of Gothic
thrillers such as The Monk
or The Castle of Otranto
, as well as new stories about famous criminals. Some of the most famous of these penny part-stories were The String of Pearls: A Romance
(introducing Sweeney Todd
), The Mysteries of London
(inspired by French serial The Mysteries of Paris) and Varney the Vampire
. Highwaymen
were popular heroes. Black Bess or the Knight of the Road, outlining the largely imaginary exploits of real-life English highwayman Dick Turpin
, continued for 254 episodes.
Working class boys who could not afford a penny a week often formed clubs that would share the cost, passing the flimsy booklets from reader to reader. Other enterprising youngsters would collect a number of consecutive parts, then rent the volume out to friends.
In 1866, Boys of England
was introduced as a new type of publication, an eight page magazine that featured serial stories as well as articles and shorts of interests. It was printed on the same cheap paper, though sporting a larger format than the penny parts.
Numerous competitors quickly followed, with such titles as Boy’s Leisure Hour, Boys Standard, Young Men of Great Britain, etc. As the price and quality of fiction was the same, these also fell under the general definition of penny dreadfuls.
American dime novel
s were edited and rewritten for a British audience. These appeared in booklet form, such as the Boy's First Rate Pocket Library. Frank Reade
, Buffalo Bill
and Deadwood Dick
were all popular with the Penny Dreadful audience.
In late 1893, a publisher, Alfred Harmsworth, decided to do something about what was widely perceived as the corrupting influence of the penny dreadfuls. He issued new story papers, The Half-penny Marvel, The Union Jack and Pluck, all priced at one half-penny. At first the stories were high-minded moral tales, reportedly based on true experiences, but it was not long before these papers started using the same kind of material as the publications they competed against. A.A. Milne once said, "Harmsworth killed the penny dreadful by the simple process of producing the ha'penny dreadfuller." The quality of the Harmsworth/Amalgamated Press papers began to improve throughout the early 20th century, however. By the time of the First World War papers such as Union Jack
dominated the market.
, who began in the Half-penny Marvel in 1893. In 1904 the Union Jack became "Sexton Blake's own paper" and he appeared in every issue thereafter, up until the paper's demise in 1933. In total Blake appeared in roughly 4,000 adventures, right up into the 1970s, a record only exceeded by Nick Carter
and Dixon Hawke. Harkaway was also popular in America and had many imitators.
Over time the penny dreadfuls evolved into the British comic magazines.
Owing to their cheap production, their perceived lack of value, and such hazards as war-time paper drives, the penny dreadfuls, particularly the earliest ones, are fairly rare today.
British literature
British Literature refers to literature associated with the United Kingdom, Isle of Man and Channel Islands. By far the largest part of British literature is written in the English language, but there are bodies of written works in Latin, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, Cornish, Manx, Jèrriais,...
fiction publication in the 19th century that usually featured lurid serial stories appearing in parts over a number of weeks, each part costing an (old) penny
£sd
£sd was the popular name for the pre-decimal currencies used in the Kingdom of England, later the United Kingdom, and ultimately in much of the British Empire...
. The term, however, soon came to encompass a variety of publications that featured cheap sensational fiction, such as story paper
Story paper
*This article is about British Story papers. For the U.S. version, see Dime novel.A story paper is a periodical publication similar to a literary magazine, but featuring illustrations and text stories, and aimed towards children and teenagers...
s and booklet "libraries". The penny dreadfuls were printed on cheap pulp
Wood pulp
Pulp is a lignocellulosic fibrous material prepared by chemically or mechanically separating cellulose fibres from wood, fibre crops or waste paper. Wood pulp is the most common raw material in papermaking.-History:...
paper and were aimed primarily at working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
adolescents.
History
These serials started in the 1830s, originally as a cheaper alternative to mainstream fictional part-works, such as those by Charles DickensCharles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
(which cost a shilling
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
[twelve pennies]) for working class adults, but by the 1850s the serial stories were aimed exclusively at teenagers. The stories themselves were reprints or sometimes rewrites of Gothic
Gothic fiction
Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. Gothicism's origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, subtitled "A Gothic Story"...
thrillers such as The Monk
The Monk
The Monk: A Romance is a Gothic novel by Matthew Gregory Lewis, published in 1796. It was written before the author turned 20, in the space of 10 weeks.-Characters:...
or The Castle of Otranto
The Castle of Otranto
The Castle of Otranto is a 1764 novel by Horace Walpole. It is generally regarded as the first gothic novel, initiating a literary genre which would become extremely popular in the later 18th century and early 19th century...
, as well as new stories about famous criminals. Some of the most famous of these penny part-stories were The String of Pearls: A Romance
The String of Pearls
The String of Pearls: A Romance is the title of a fictional story first published as a penny dreadful serial 1846-47. The main antagonist of the story is the infamous Sweeney Todd, "the Demon Barber of Fleet Street", who here makes his literary debut....
(introducing Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd is a fictional character who first appeared as then antagonist of the Victorian penny dreadful The String of Pearls and he was later introduced as an antihero in the broadway musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and its film adaptation...
), The Mysteries of London
The Mysteries of London
The Mysteries of London is a penny dreadful or city mysteries novel begun by George W. M. Reynolds in 1844. Reynolds wrote the first two series of this long-running narrative of life in the seedy underbelly of mid-nineteenth-century London. Thomas Miller wrote the third series and Edward L...
(inspired by French serial The Mysteries of Paris) and Varney the Vampire
Varney the Vampire
Varney the Vampire; or, the Feast of Blood was a Victorian era serialized gothic horror story by James Malcolm Rymer . It first appeared in 1845–47 as a series of cheap pamphlets of the kind then known as "penny dreadfuls". The story was published in book form in 1847...
. Highwaymen
Highwayman
A highwayman was a thief and brigand who preyed on travellers. This type of outlaw, usually, travelled and robbed by horse, as compared to a footpad who traveled and robbed on foot. Mounted robbers were widely considered to be socially superior to footpads...
were popular heroes. Black Bess or the Knight of the Road, outlining the largely imaginary exploits of real-life English highwayman Dick Turpin
Dick Turpin
Richard "Dick" Turpin was an English highwayman whose exploits were romanticised following his execution in York for horse theft. Turpin may have followed his father's profession as a butcher early in life, but by the early 1730s he had joined a gang of deer thieves, and later became a poacher,...
, continued for 254 episodes.
Working class boys who could not afford a penny a week often formed clubs that would share the cost, passing the flimsy booklets from reader to reader. Other enterprising youngsters would collect a number of consecutive parts, then rent the volume out to friends.
In 1866, Boys of England
Boys of England
Boys of England was a British boys' periodical issued weekly from 1866 to 1899, "the leading boys' periodical of the nineteenth century".Boys of England was edited by the publisher and former Chartist Edwin J. Brett. By the 1870s it had a circulation of 250,000, and a mainly working-class readership...
was introduced as a new type of publication, an eight page magazine that featured serial stories as well as articles and shorts of interests. It was printed on the same cheap paper, though sporting a larger format than the penny parts.
Numerous competitors quickly followed, with such titles as Boy’s Leisure Hour, Boys Standard, Young Men of Great Britain, etc. As the price and quality of fiction was the same, these also fell under the general definition of penny dreadfuls.
American dime novel
Dime novel
Dime novel, though it has a specific meaning, has also become a catch-all term for several different forms of late 19th-century and early 20th-century U.S...
s were edited and rewritten for a British audience. These appeared in booklet form, such as the Boy's First Rate Pocket Library. Frank Reade
Frank Reade
Frank Reade was the protagonist of a series of dime novels published primarily for boys. The first novel, Frank Reade and His Steam Man of the Plains, an imitation of Edward Ellis's "The Steam Man of the Prairies" , was written by Harry Enton and serialized in the Frank Tousey juvenile magazine...
, Buffalo Bill
Buffalo Bill
William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody was a United States soldier, bison hunter and showman. He was born in the Iowa Territory , in LeClaire but lived several years in Canada before his family moved to the Kansas Territory. Buffalo Bill received the Medal of Honor in 1872 for service to the US...
and Deadwood Dick
Deadwood Dick
Deadwood Dick is a fictional character who appears in a series of stories, or "dime novels", published between 1877 and 1897 by Edward Lytton Wheeler...
were all popular with the Penny Dreadful audience.
In late 1893, a publisher, Alfred Harmsworth, decided to do something about what was widely perceived as the corrupting influence of the penny dreadfuls. He issued new story papers, The Half-penny Marvel, The Union Jack and Pluck, all priced at one half-penny. At first the stories were high-minded moral tales, reportedly based on true experiences, but it was not long before these papers started using the same kind of material as the publications they competed against. A.A. Milne once said, "Harmsworth killed the penny dreadful by the simple process of producing the ha'penny dreadfuller." The quality of the Harmsworth/Amalgamated Press papers began to improve throughout the early 20th century, however. By the time of the First World War papers such as Union Jack
Union Jack (magazine)
- Introduction :There were two story papers called Union Jack. The first appeared in the 1880s but was only very short-lived. The name was then used by Alfred Harmsworth in 1894 for a new halfpenny storypaper intended as a companion to the successful Halfpenny Marvel.Harmsworth considered it his...
dominated the market.
Legacy
Two phenomenally popular characters to come out of the penny dreadfuls were Jack Harkaway, introduced in the Boys of England in 1871, and Sexton BlakeSexton Blake
Sexton Blake is a fictional detective who appeared in many British comic strips and novels throughout the 20th century. He was described by Professor Jeffrey Richards on the BBC in The Radio Detectives in 2003 as "the poor man's Sherlock Holmes"...
, who began in the Half-penny Marvel in 1893. In 1904 the Union Jack became "Sexton Blake's own paper" and he appeared in every issue thereafter, up until the paper's demise in 1933. In total Blake appeared in roughly 4,000 adventures, right up into the 1970s, a record only exceeded by Nick Carter
Nick Carter (literary character)
Nick Carter is a fictional character who began as a pulp fiction private detective and has appeared in a variety of formats over more than a century.-Literary history:...
and Dixon Hawke. Harkaway was also popular in America and had many imitators.
Over time the penny dreadfuls evolved into the British comic magazines.
Owing to their cheap production, their perceived lack of value, and such hazards as war-time paper drives, the penny dreadfuls, particularly the earliest ones, are fairly rare today.
See also
- Gothic fictionGothic fictionGothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. Gothicism's origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, subtitled "A Gothic Story"...
- History of the British comicHistory of the British comicA British comic is a periodical published in the United Kingdom that contains comic strips. It is generally referred to as a comic or a comic magazine, and historically as a comic paper....
- Pulp magazinePulp magazinePulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
- Story paperStory paper*This article is about British Story papers. For the U.S. version, see Dime novel.A story paper is a periodical publication similar to a literary magazine, but featuring illustrations and text stories, and aimed towards children and teenagers...