Penny dreadful (literature)
Penny dreadfuls were inexpensive serial fiction publications that emerged in Victorian England during the 1830s, aimed primarily at young male readers. These stories, often priced at a penny, covered themes such as adventure, crime, and romance, and were known for their sensational and sometimes violent content. The rise in literacy during this period, accompanied by improvements in printing technology, allowed for the production of these short, unbound stories, often illustrated to attract attention. Each installment typically spanned eight to sixteen pages and was released weekly, enticing readers to return for the next part of the narrative.
Despite their popularity, penny dreadfuls faced criticism for allegedly inciting violence and influencing criminal behavior among the youth. High-profile criminal cases brought attention to the potential negative impacts of these publications, although some, like writer G. K. Chesterton, defended them as mere escapism rather than a catalyst for crime. The popularity of penny dreadfuls waned by the early 1900s, but their legacy endures, influencing the serialization of fiction and the evolution of crime and adventure genres in literature and popular culture. Many original penny dreadfuls have been lost, but a selection is available through digitization efforts, allowing contemporary audiences to explore this unique literary phenomenon.
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Penny dreadful (literature)
A penny dreadful was an inexpensive fiction book or paper published in Victorian England. Penny dreadfuls—which were also called penny bloods and penny awfuls—told stories about adventure, crime, and romance. The penny dreadfuls were very popular among young men in England, and their controversial, violent content was sometimes blamed for murders and other crimes. Penny dreadfuls had an important impact on British literature but fell out of fashion in the early 1900s.
Background
Life changed for people in England during the Victorian era. Many more people became literate. Public schools began teaching British children in the 1800s, so many of them learned to read. Prior to this, many parents could not afford to send their children to school and sent them to work instead. However, even though more people knew how to read, traditional novels and books were expensive, and most people could not afford to purchase them regularly. So, publishers decided to create inexpensive serial works of fiction. Serial fiction is published in installments and first became popular in newspapers. Soon publishers decided to do this, too—they printed and sold very short books containing only a part of a story. The books usually only cost a penny, but sometimes they cost a bit more. Even young people could usually afford to buy the books for such a low price. Publishers were able to create these cheaper versions of books because the printing technology of the era was improving.
Overview
Publishers first started making what would later be called penny dreadfuls in the 1830s. Many of the first penny dreadfuls copied the gothic fiction of the 1700s. Others were about romance, the Wild West, crime, detectives, highwaymen and thieves, and pirates. Most penny dreadfuls romanticized crime and criminals, and many had explicit scenes of violence in them. Penny dreadfuls became famous for their depictions of violence and other socially unacceptable behavior.
Penny dreadfuls were printed on very cheap paper, so they could be produced inexpensively. They were not bound and covered for protection as more expensive novels were. They had illustrations on the front to make them more attractive to young readers. Most penny dreadfuls were printed in black and white, but some had colorful covers. Most were only eight to sixteen pages long.
A part of each serialized story was printed each week. The story cut off on the last page of the book, even if it cut off midsentence. The next week's installment picked up where the last week's installment left off. Publishers ensured that people would buy the dreadfuls week after week by dividing longer stories into sections.
The authors of penny dreadfuls were often paid a penny for each sentence of a story, so they learned to write short, staccato sentences. While sometimes one author wrote all installments of a story, publishers often assigned installments to different writers. Some writers wrote up to ten different story lines at a time. Millions of copies of penny dreadfuls were being sold in the prime, so authors and publishers had to work quickly to meet the demand. From the 1830s to the 1850s, roughly one hundred publishers were printing penny dreadfuls in England.
Even though thousands of penny dreadfuls were published in the 1800s, most have been destroyed and forgotten. Penny dreadfuls' cheap construction made them very difficult to preserve, so today most copies can be found only in special collections. However, a number of penny dreadfuls have been digitized and posted online so that people today can still read them. Furthermore, some of the stories created in penny dreadfuls have lived on in other forms. For example, the story of Sweeny Todd, a barber who kills his customers, was first introduced in the 1840s in a penny dreadful called The String of Pearls. The story was retold in several other penny dreadfuls and is still featured in movies and dramas today.
The name penny dreadful was coined by media to show a concern the public had with penny fiction. Many people believed penny dreadfuls were causing young men to act violently and commit crimes. Many criminal cases in Victorian England blamed the influence of penny dreadfuls on the actions of accused criminals. For example, in 1895 Robert and Nattie Coombes—who were thirteen and twelve—were accused of murdering their mother. The boys had a large collection of penny dreadfuls in their home. Some people claimed the boys were influenced by the violence depicted in the books. Other crimes and even suicides were also blamed on penny dreadfuls. Some people even worried that English youths would rebel against the government because of the books' influence.
Even though judges and other officials often blamed crime on the influence of penny dreadfuls, some other thinkers were unconvinced. For example, Christian writer and thinker G. K. Chesterton wrote an essay called "In Defense of Penny Dreadfuls" in 1901. The essay argued that young men were reading penny dreadfuls to get away from the reality of their own lives, not to learn how to become criminals. Chesterton also pointed out that traditional literature also often romanticized violence but was never blamed for fostering crime.
Penny dreadfuls slowly faded out of popularity in the early 1900s, but they significantly impacted literature and popular culture. The serialization of fiction remained popular, in large part because of penny dreadfuls. Serialized stories continued to appear in newspapers and magazines in the twenty-first century. Furthermore, crime and adventure stories—though they did not originate in penny dreadfuls—became even more popular because of them.
Bibliography
Anderson, Hephzibah. "The Shocking Tale of the Penny Dreadful." BBC Culture, 2 May 2016, www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160502-the-shocking-tale-of-the-penny-dreadful. Accessed 14 Sept. 2017.
Baumann, Jason. "The True Delights of Penny Dreadfuls." New York Public Library, 22 May 2014, www.nypl.org/blog/2014/05/22/penny-dreadfuls. Accessed 14 Sept. 2017.
Chesterton, G.K. "A Defence of Penny Dreadfuls." The Defendant. J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd., 1901.
Flanders, Judith. "Penny Dreadfuls." British Library, 15 May 2014, www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/penny-dreadfuls. Accessed 14 Sept. 2017.
Mack, Robert L. "Short and Sharp." The Guardian, 25 Jan. 2008, www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jan/25/crimebooks. Accessed 14 Sept. 2017.
Summerscale, Kate. "Penny Dreadfuls: the Victorian Equivalent of Video Games." The Guardian, 30 April 2016, www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/30/penny-dreadfuls-victorian-equivalent-video-games-kate-summerscale-wicked-boy. Accessed 14 Sept. 2017.
St. John, Kristin and Linda Zimmerman. "Print Processes." Stanford University Library, June, 1997, web.stanford.edu/dept/SUL/library/prod/depts/dp/pennies/print.html. Accessed 14 Sept. 2017.
Sweet, Matthew. "Cheap and Nasty: The Horrid Legacy of the Penny Dreadful." The Guardian, 6 June 2014, www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/06/horror-fiction. Accessed 14 Sept. 2017.