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

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

This is the podcast that carries you back to the sooty, foggy streets of early-Victorian London when a new issue of one of the "Penny Dreadful" blood-and-thunder story paper comes out! It's like an early-Victorian variety show, FEATURING ... — Sweeney Todd ... — Varney, the Vampyre ... — Highwayman Dick Turpin ... — Spring-Heel'd Jack ... — mustache-twirling villains ... — virtuous ballet-girls ... —wicked gamblers ... ... and more! Spiced with naughty cock-and-hen-club songs, broadsheet street ballads, and lots of old Regency "dad jokes." Join us!

Episodes

August 19, 2025 34 mins

A "spicy" (-ish) Tuesday Twopenny Terrible minisode IN WHICH —

0:08:45: MYSTERIES OF LONDON, Ch. 6, IN WHICH —:

  • Richard Markham meets Diana Arlington and is utterly smitten. Then a short, stout, vulgar-looking man enters the room. This is Augustus Talbot, and he is truly crass. He keeps trying to steer the conversation round to the subject of a corn he’s afflicted with on his little toe. Chichester and Harborough are clearly worr...
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Episode One of Season Three! — A Sunday-evening full episode IN WHICH —

0:04:10: TERRIFIC REGISTER ARTICLE:

  • We hear of a spooky coincidence (or is it?): John Dryden, the poet and playwright who became England's first Poet Laureate in 1668, was an astrology buff, and pulled the charts for his newborn son Charles. They were not good news ... but that astrology stuff is just for fun, right? —right?


0:09:10: ROSE MORTIMER; or, TH...

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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 other awful stuff are not something you are interested in hearing about, even 200 years later — feel free to skip this episode and circle back this coming Sunday for the regular Penny Dreadful Variety Hour, wh...

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A "spicy" (-ish) Tuesday Twopenny Terrible Minisode IN WHICH —

0:02:00: SWEENEY TODD, Ch. 55:

  • In which: The usurer, John Mundel, begins to realize that Sweeney Todd, the humble barber he has hired to prepare him for his visit to court, is the same man who pretended to be a duke and took him for £8000 with the string of pearls! What will he do? How will Todd get out of this one? We’ll find out today (but there's a pr...
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A Sunday-evening full episode IN WHICH —

0:05:00: TERRIFIC REGISTER ARTICLE:

  • We hear of an event in which a woman hanged for the murder of her child recovered miraculously, as if God Himself was vouching for her innocence.


0:09:10: BLACK BESS (DICK TURPIN), Ch. 17:

  • IN WHICH: Dick withdraws into the shadows to watch the beadle, Solomon Goggs, preparing the church for what looks like it’s going to be a midnight wedding. ...
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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 other awful stuff are not something you are interested in hearing about, even 200 years later — feel free to skip this episode and circle back this coming Sunday for the regular Penny Dreadful Variety Hour, wh...

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A "spicy" (-ish) Tuesday Twopenny Terrible Minisode IN WHICH —

0:02:20: VARNEY THE VAMPYRE, Ch. 16:

  • In which: The visitor in the garden does indeed turn out to be Sir Francis Varney, the vampire! He has come to the house to see the portrait that resembles him, or so he claims. But he behaves with very provoking coolness and seems like he is trying to get up a quarrel somehow, maybe with an eye toward fighting a duel wit...
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A Sunday-evening full episode IN WHICH —

0:04:35: TERRIFIC REGISTER ARTICLE:

  • We hear of a miraculous intervention to spare the life of a father condemned to die at the hands of his own son.


0:06:50: ROSE MORTIMER, Ch. 5:

  • IN WHICH: We see Rose Mortimer as a rising star in the ballet. Her great triumph is as Goddess of Morning in a Christmas show, after which Count Lerno approaches her, telling her he has a message from ...
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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 other awful stuff are not something you are interested in hearing about, even 200 years later — feel free to skip this episode and circle back this coming Sunday for the regular Penny Dreadful Variety Hour, when this podcast will be back...

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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 from the highway and hid in the darkness of a hedgerow, turning the stolen horse loose with a slap on the rump. But the grabs are closing in, until … wait, is that the spectre horseman again? He looks just like Dick, he’s dressed...
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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, Ch. 16:

  • In this chapter, we cut back to the libertine who we saw badgering the poor ballet-girl two chapters ago. Now he is being upbraided by a very young woman. We learn that this girl is his old fancy-piece, who...
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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 explosion and much loss of life. Originally published in Household Words magazine by Charles Dickens; courtesy of Cate Ludlow and The History Press (UK).


0:08:00: VARNEY THE VAMPYRE, Ch. 16:

  • "The Meeting of the Love...
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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 Words magazine by Charles Dickens; courtesy of Cate Ludlow and The History Press (UK).


0:05:30: MYSTERIES OF LONDON, Ch. 4:

  • We cut away to Mr. Markham’s estate. That gentleman’s two sons are talking. The elder, Eugene (19),...
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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 appear before him immediately after death ...


0:07:10: SPRING-HEEL'D JACK, Ch. 15:

  • At the small boat, two rough sailors take Ellen Folder from Jack and invite him to climb aboard after them and join them in a glass ...
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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 hid his treasure. It did not go quite as the prince had hoped ...


0:14:00: THE BLACK BAND, Ch. 15:

  • We see Lolota Vizzini, the Star of the Ballet, relaxing at her Arlington Street house, being sad because Lord Lionel (who,...
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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 suggests they go for a walk; Johanna insists that it be in Fleet-street, and that they walk back and forth past Sweeney Todd’s shop door the whole time. Will he notice? What will happen?


0:26:50: ARTICLE from the TERRIFIC REGIS...

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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’ll recall from the last chapter. The youth knows he must flee for his life; but, can he? What will be his fate? Also, is he really a boy, or a woman in boy's clothes? If the latter, why?


0:17:00: ARTICLE from the TERRIF...

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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 rash act in leaping to her death. He comes to the surface and finds the tidal current is fierce, and strikes out in search of the girl. He sees her about to get sucked under a barge that’s moored in the stream, but he reaches her a...
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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 cute blonde with a short skirt and a snubnosed .38, who will help you negotiate a personal discount on the spot. Download it today and start saving for free!


0:10:00: BLACK BESS (feat. Highwayman Dick Turpin), Ch. 14:

  • Dick bring...
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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 and ducks into the farthest room. Luckily the newcomers enter the other room, and light a candle, and start taking some refreshments; but then the lad overhears them talking of burglaries, and murders, and a trap-door in the house t...
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