From their inception in the 1840s until their decline in the 1860s, the penny dreadful was a source of derision from both moralist and literary critics. While many advocated for the banning of such texts on account of their salacious and often violent content, literary critics further condemned the texts as inferior plagiarisms of more well-known Gothic novels which could not be considered ‘serious’ literature. Distributed in weekly penny-parts aimed at the working classes, these serials were hugely popular in the Victorian period with texts such as George W M Reynolds’s The Mysteries of London (1844-46) even outselling Dickens. Due to their reputation as the bastardised offspring of Gothic literature, however, the penny dreadfuls have long been regarded as less worthy of critical study than more canonical Gothic fiction. There has, however, been a resurgence of interest in some of these texts particularly the aforementioned The Mysteries of London and James Malcolm Rymer’s The String of Pearls (1846-47) featuring the demon-barber of Fleet Street, Sweeney Todd, which has been subject to numerous adaptations over the years. It is due to this renewed interest - aided by archival work excavating many of these forgotten texts by the contributions of collectors such as Barry Ono – that we are able to access these texts and gain a deeper understanding of these controversial Gothic serials.

This workshop will aim to explore these texts as radical in terms of their political content and demonstrate how these texts show the malleable form of the Gothic mode as they adapt the genre harkening back to older forms and acknowledging their own role within Gothic discourses. The session will look at a breadth of material including more popular, well-known penny serials such as The String of Pearls as well as lesser-known texts such as Herbert Thornley’s Life in London (1846), and Thomas Frost’s The Mysteries of Old Father Thames (1848). These texts offered their readership the sensational and gripping tales of terror featuring subterranean dwellings, murder and cannibalism. However, despite what has been previously suggested, the use of these shocking narratives had a social purpose: to enter into discourse regarding the treatment of the working classes under capitalism and as a result of industrialised labour. Through these Gothic tales, by bringing these topical discussions to the fore, readers were able to exorcise these anxieties through fiction.  These three texts have been chosen for their exploration of poverty and exploitative labour is represented through subterranean dwellings.

Instructor: 
Sophie Raine is a PhD student at Lancaster University studying penny dreadfuls and urban spaces. Sophie has previously published on both Victorian sex work in the VPFJ and on subterranean spaces in the Palgrave Handbook of Steam Age Gothic. She is currently co-editing the collection Penny Dreadfuls and the Gothic due to be published in 2022. In addition to this, Sophie is the Peer Review Editor for the Victorian Network.

Breakdown of the class’ approach to the topic/questions that will be covered.

1. 1. Introduction to the penny dreadful.

This introductory section will provide cultural context and reactions to the penny dreadful as well as some factual detail about these texts. This will help to situate the penny dreadful within the reading trends of the nineteenth-century and give insight into why these texts were censored/banned/caused outrage.

This section will address:

• What are penny dreadfuls?
• What is the difference between a penny dreadful and a penny blood?
• How widely were these circulated?
• How were these received?
• Which texts were censored?
• How were these texts linked to juvenile crime and violent offences?
• 2. The penny dreadful and Gothic fiction.

This section will address:

• How penny dreadfuls are important within studies of Gothic fiction
• The adaptive nature of the penny dreadful and how they often plagiarised or borrowed from more well-known Gothic texts. There will be examples of narratives which have plagiarised Matthew Lewis’s The Monk, for example.
• Typical Gothic tropes found within these texts
• A brief reminder that these serials are not homogeneous and how not every penny serial necessarily conformed to these conventions.

1. 3. Penny dreadfuls and social/political commentary:

This section will be to guide the class as to why these specific texts have been chosen and provide some key historic context. This will cover:

• An overview of labour conditions under capitalism in the 1840s.
• Workhouses, Poor Laws, and employment rates
• Labour conditions in places like factories.
• Introducing how in penny dreadfuls the subterranean dwelling can work as a metaphor for the lowly living and working conditions of the poorest in the metropolis. I will then also refer back to the Gothic tropes of penny fiction and suggest these underground spaces were inherently macabre due to the confined, murky conditions as well as a history of these spaces being used to dispose of dead bodies.

1. 4. The String of Pearls and industrial labour
2. Discussions of this text will centre on how Lovett’s bakery in the text can be seen as a criticism of labour exploitation and factory working conditions.
3. This will include some close reading and examples paralleling Rymer’s text to stories in the press which arguably inspired the text.
4. 5. Herbert Thornley’s Life in London and Thomas Frost’s The Mysteries of Old Father Thames

Continuing to look at subterranean spaces, I will discuss the above texts in relation to ‘mudlarking’ – a nineteenth-century trade by which individuals would wade in the rivers and sewers to forage for scrap metal and other resources to sell. This section too will be supported with archival research and comparisons between the two texts and real-life stories of mudlarks and non-fictional nineteenth-century commentary on this subject.

1. 6. This next section will briefly draw the three texts together summarising how the construction of Gothic underground dwellings and spaces are a criticism of class inequality. 
2. 7. Conclusion: This section will reiterate the relevance of penny dreadfuls and how they utilised common Gothic motifs to show the horror of labour exploitation.

Sources:

• Powerpoint with illustrations from penny dreadfuls
• Due to the nature of the work, no audio or video material will be required.
• Texts referenced: The Mysteries of London (Reynolds), The Mysteries of Old Father Thames (Thomas Frost), The String of Pearls (Rymer), and Life in London (Herbert Thornley).
• Secondary criticism will also be used and a list of possible texts will be provided upon request, but these will be used sparsely.