Tag: penny dreadful
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Penny Dreadful: Edward Pettit on Varney the Vampire
In his Book Reviews, Edward Pettit, The Philly Poe Guy, tells us, “Years ago I discovered Varney the Vampire, or the Feast of Blood, a penny dreadful from the Victorian age, the first full-length vampire novel in English (I’ve never discovered whether there were any vampire novels in other languages that predate it). My discovery was a…
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Mysteries of London
G. W. M. Reynolds (July 23, 1814 – June 19, 1879) is not as famous today as Dickens or Thackery, but during his lifetime, he was arguably more popular. His serial The Mysteries of London (1844), sold 40,000 copies a week in installments known as “penny dreadfuls” before it was issued in bound volumes. Wikipedia tells us, “The Mysteries of London and its sequel…