Today I want to discover more about a form of Victorian reading that was cheap, thrilling, and to some, unsettling: the penny dreadful. Often dismissed as low culture, these small weekly publications played a powerful role in shaping imagination, fear, and identity during the nineteenth century, especially among the young and the working poor.
Penny dreadfuls emerged in the 1830s, at a moment when Britain was changing fast. Industrialisation had pulled families into crowded cities, work was long and repetitive, and education was slowly becoming more accessible. Literacy rates were rising, but books remained prohibitively expensive. For a single penny, these serialized stories offered escape. They were printed on cheap paper and sold by street vendors, thet were designed to be consumed quickly, often on the way to work or at the end of a long day.
Early penny dreadfuls drew heavily on older stories, Gothic novels, folk legends, sensational crime reports, and public executions all fed their content. Stories of highwaymen, pirates, crime, and supernatural figures were common. Violence, danger, and moral transgression were not hidden but placed front and centre. For readers living constrained, exhausting lives, these tales must have offered intensity. Fear became entertainment, and shock became something to anticipate rather than endure.
By the 1840s and 1850s, penny dreadfuls had found their audience. Young working-class boys, in particular, loved them. Many were apprentices or factory workers with little control over their own lives. These stories gave them characters who broke rules, challenged authority, and lived boldly, even recklessly. There was excitement in following an outlaw or anti-hero week by week. Readers may have felt a sense of power through identification, even if they understood it was fantasy.
Obviously, not everyone approved. Middle-class reformers, teachers, and religious leaders worried about their influence. They feared penny dreadfuls would encourage crime, laziness, and even moral decay. Public debates framed these stories as dangerous to impressionable minds. But this criticism also reveals how seriously their impact was taken. The fear was not that they were meaningless, but that they were effective.
As the century continued, penny dreadfuls began to change. Competition gradually increased, and some publishers softened the content or introduced clearer moral lessons. At the same time, alternative cheap literature also appeared, offering adventure without quite the same darkness. By the late Victorian period, the original penny dreadful was fading out, replaced by boys’ papers and illustrated magazines. Even so, their legacy still continued.
For readers at the time, penny dreadfuls were more than just trashy entertainment. They were moments in which they could escape, and experience excitement. They allowed readers to imagine freedom, and to step briefly outside their rigid boundaries. In a world that often demanded obedience without complaint, these stories must have felt like defiance.
Do you think penny dreadfuls were more harmful or more helpful to the people who read them-and what modern stories do you think play a similar role today?
Image info:
Spring Heeled Jack
Penny dreadful
Date: 1860
Artist: anonymous
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