A “Penny Dreadful” or “Penny Blood” is a sensational story published in serial pamphlets and newspapers and sold for a penny during the 1800s and early 1900s.They share the dark, thrilling themes of many famous gothic novels such as Dracula and Frankenstein and the same serial format as popular fiction of the time such as Great Expectations and Tess of D’Urberville. but were considered much less literary and often blamed for causing crime due to their violent and sometimes sexual content.
Humans have always been fascinated by their own darker nature. Tales of murder and mayhem have been whispered in the dark since the very first campfire. The forbidden can be as intoxicating as it is frightening. Before “Penny Dreadfuls”, however, most of these dark tales were told orally. Printing books was costly and reserved only for the elite. As a result, literature from the enlightenment age was largely philosophical and moralizing. This changed when the printing press became industrialized. The stories people had always whispered to one another on a cold winter’s night could now be printed and serialized in mass to be clutched by a maid in her room after dark or a stable hand between chores.
Novels of all kinds were serialized in the 1800s. Classics such as Tess of D’Urberville by Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations were published one chapter at a time in popular newspapers. People would anxiously await the weekly installments and discuss them with strong opinions. It was said that hosts of dinner parties would make sure not to put certain guests next to one another for fear that an argument might erupt over whether or not Tess from Tess of D’Urberville was a lady and Dickens rewrote the ending of Great Expectations when there was public outcry that Pip did not marry Estella. These serials, however, were much more costly and read mostly by the upper and middle classes.
Novels featuring the sensational and supernatural were nothing new. What is often regarded as the very first novel, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, was a parody of such romances (here meaning a long tale of adventure popular in the renaissance) such as The Faerie Queen by Edward Spencer, La Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory, or Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto. Dracula and Frankenstein both came from a resurgence of such tales during the romantic period (see more on romanticism here). These gothic novels have stood the test of time but many other novels of the genre such as The Mysteries of Udalpho are less acclaimed and regarded as inferior literature.
Jane Austen’s novel Northanger Abbey is a parody of gothic novels. Unlike the rapturous beauties in a gothic novel the heroine, Catherine, is described to be quite ordinary. The hero, Mr. Tilny, is not drawn to her out of any unbridled passion but simply because she was pretty, relatively level headed and seemed quite fond of him. The story takes a humorous turn when she spends page after page wondering what the origins of a mysterious slip of paper is only to discover that it is an old laundry list.
However much derision gothic novels and romances received for their sensational content and less sophisticated themes it did not compare to the derision heaped upon the “Penny Dreadful”. The earlier “Penny Dreadfuls” focused mainly on “true crime” but then began to focus on fictional criminals such as the Barber of Fleet Street. Soon more fantastical stories began to join them such as the Vampire Varney and Wagner the Weir-Wolf. These stories featured riveting beauties who both killed and required rescuing, murders, kidnappings, love affairs, duels, robbers, vows, lies, and nobles in disguise. They were violent melodramas focusing more on plot and device than themes or character development. Literary critics called them “trash” and they were cited in police reports as the cause of murders and suicides. There was more than one attempt made to have them banned but they continued to be written and circulated in droves .
Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women, wrote more “Penny Dreadfuls” -or “Blood and Thunders” as they were more often called in the states- under the pseudonym A.M. Barnard, than polite novels about young girls. Her novel A Long and Fatal Love Chase was commissioned by a publisher but ultimately rejected for being “too sensational” and not published until 1995, more than a hundred years after her death. It is often suggested that her “Blood and Thunders” were written for money while Little Women and her other similar stories were her true voice.. However, quotes such as an admission that she had grown “tired of providing moral pap for the young” after the success of Little Women suggests the opposite or, at the very least, that all her stories were written for money.
Much like today, sex, as well as violence sold in the Victorian era. Sexual content was less direct than it is today but it was very often implied. In A Long and Fatal Love Chase the heroine lives with a married man not knowing he is married. When she learns the truth she flees in horror of what she has done, implying that their relationship had not been a chaste one. Nicida, the murderous lover of Wagner in Wagner the Weir-Wolf is kidnapped by pirates and almost “possessed” by the pirate captain before she is rescued. She and Wagner then live together on the Island for months and the narration refers to them as “husband and wife”, again implying that their relations are not chaste.
The public’s craving for thrilling, sensational stories has never gone away nor has the critic’s assesment that such stories are inferior literature. In later years “Penny Dreadfuls” and “Blood and Thunders” gave way to “Pulp Fiction”, mass produced paperbacks made with cheap pulped paper. A modern equivalent to a “Penny Dreadful” might be a TV show such as the True Blood or Supernatural. It’s not meant to be high quality storytelling. It’s not meant to make it’s consumers reflect on social issues or come to terms with pieces of their own nature. It’s pure entertainment meant to provide escape and an outlet for the natural human fascination with darkness. It may never take the place of more sophisticated and meticulously crafted stories but it will also never stop being popular.