penny dreadful

That a penny dreadful character originally meant just to shock and sicken becomes instead a pitiable victim is a testament to the power of music to make bad guys, if not good, compelling.

On his bedside table were loose matches, unused stationery, a penny dreadful left facedown at the page he had stopped reading.

“It is Grand Guignol, it is penny dreadful.”

Casey links the newspaper era that parallels the rise of the penny dreadful with the gestation of the 19th century idea of "new journalism."

Travelers to the village were rare, but occasionally a peddler would come through the village, selling "penny dreadful" accounts of grisly murders, fateful encounters, dire doings and remarkable escapes.