The Penny Dreadful Hour: A Feast of Early-Victorian Street Literature and Stories

TRIGGER WARNING: This is a Ha'penny Horrid 'Hursday episode. "Horrid" as in "horror." Thursday is the day we do all the grimdark, grisly, horrifying stories. If murders, war crimes, parricides, and o…

A half-hour- long Tuesday Twopenny Terrible Minisode IN WHICH —

0:02:40: BLACK BESS (Dick Turpin's adventures), Ch. 16:

• In which: Highwayman Dick Turpin is in a bit of a tight spot. He’s slipped away f…

A Sunday-evening full episode IN WHICH —

0:05:10: TERRIFIC REGISTER ARTICLE:

• The miracle in the burning house, that saved a young John Wesley, the later founder of Methodism.

0:09:00: SPRING-HEEL'D JACK…

A half-hour- long Tuesday Twopenny Terrible Minisode IN WHICH —

0:02:30: TERRIBLE TIDBIT of the DAY for JULY 22:

• A sad account of a steamboat voyage on July 22, 1850, which ended with a terrific boiler…

A Sunday-evening full episode IN WHICH —

0:02:40: TERRIBLE TIDBIT of the DAY for JULY 20:

• A melancholy tale of a shooting accident near Hungerford on July 20, 1852. Originally published in Household Wo…

A half-hour- long Tuesday Twopenny Terrible Minisode IN WHICH —

0:03:00: ARTICLE from the TERRIFIC REGISTER, Page 12:

• We hear of a Scottish nobleman who's gifted with the Second Sight, whose friends ap…

IN WHICH —

0:04:15: ARTICLE from the TERRIFIC REGISTER, Page 14:

• The prince of Saxony, we are told, asked a student of magic to raise the spirit of his rich deceased uncle so he could ask him where he …

IN WHICH —

0:06:50: SWEENEY TODD, Ch. 53:

• In this chapter, Johanna grows maudlin and overwrought and starts wallowing in self-pity, and is nearly unbearable, even for her best friend Arabella. Arabella…

IN WHICH —

0:05:30: MYSTERIES OF LONDON, Ch. 3:

• In this chapter, we see this interesting youth having determined on a desperate attempt to flee the house when when one of the ruffians spots him, as you…

IN WHICH —

0:07:30: SPRING-HEEL'D JACK, Ch. 14:

• We return to Spring-Heel’d Jack plunging into the dark filthy waters of the Thames, in a quest to save poor Ellen Folder from the consequences of her ras…

IN WHICH —

0:06:30: SPONSORED BY HONEYBUNNY!

• It's a FREE browser app that searches for online coupons, but whether it finds any or not, it also opens a transdimensional rift through which springs a cut…

IN WHICH —

0:07:00: THE MYSTERIES OF LONDON, Ch. 2:

• Having ducked into a strange house to escape the rain just before someone came home, the well-dressed youth scampers upstairs ahead of the newcomers …

IN WHICH —

0:6:00: BLACK BESS (Highwayman Dick Turpin), Ch.13:

• This week in Black Bess, we’ll finally get to see Dick Turpin do his legendary “stand and deliver” thing! The fellow he robs, though, will…

IN WHICH —

0:13:00: THE MYSTERIES OF LONDON, Prologue and Ch. 1:

• We are introduced to a very young, delicate youth in riding attire, trying to find his way home across Smithfield Market as a terrible s…

PART 3 OF 3 PARTS ... IN WHICH we finish our exploration of a fascinating little guidebook for all aspiring Swell Coves, from 1840. It’s titled “Hints to Men-About-Town,” and was written by an anonym…

IN WHICH —

0:07:30: SWEENEY TODD, Ch. 50:

• Johanna Oakley is forced to take her brave but not overly smart cousin Big Ben the Beefeater into her confidence — to tell him she is dressing in boys’ clothes…

PART 2 OF 3 PARTS ... IN WHICH we continue to explore a fascinating little guidebook for all aspiring Swell Coves, from 1840. It’s titled “Hints to Men-About-Town,” and was written by an anonymous kn…

FIVE NEW FLASH-CANT WORDS AND PHRASES —

• "On the Mace"
• "Angelics"
• "Misstopper"
• "Bone" and "Bank the swag"
• "Arch doxies, ack pirates, pigmen, rum quod culls, laced women and flowers of society"

Plus a chapte…

IN WHICH we explore a fascinating little guidebook for all aspiring Swell Coves, from 1840. It’s titled “Hints to Men-About-Town,” and was written by an anonymous knight of the goosefeather who ident…

A THIEVES' SONG TRANSLATED —

• The beak looked big, and shook his head, heigh-ho the beak!

• He wished those family coves were dead, that honest folk might get their bread; heigh-ho the beak!
• The family cov…