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

3.20: The ballet-girl's daring attempt to escape from a dastard's clutches! — Plus a broadside ballad, and an early-Victorian naughty song. (A Twopenny Torrid Tuesday demi-hour minisode!)!


Listen Later

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

0:01:52: THE BALLET-GIRL'S REVENGE, IN WHICH —:

  • CHAPTER 9: Rose learns her captors are working for Count Lerno. Then she sees her chance and bolts for the door, with the young man in hot pursuit. But she takes a wrong turn! The only escape is over the roof … can she make it? Or will she end up in a shattered, lifeless heap in the street fifty feet below?


0:22:45: BROADSIDE STREET BALLAD:

  • "The Cruel Stepmother," which we visit briefly and summarize although it's too long to read. To read it in full, go to pennydread.com/discord and look in the "Welcome friend" server feed!


0:24:50: A SALACIOUS SALOON SONG:

  • "The Maid and the Fowls," a humourous and ribald account in song of how a clever maid got herself out of trouble with her master after her cher-ami stole his supper.


0:30:20: FIVE VICTORIAN 'DAD JOKES.'

  • From "Joe Miller's Jests; or, The Wit's Vade-mecum."


Join host Corinthian Finn, a.k.a. Finn J.D. John, for a half-hour-long spree through the scandal-sheets and story papers of old London! Grab a decanter and top off your glass, unload your stumps, and let's go!

GLOSSARY OF FLASH TERMS USED IN THIS EPISODE:

  • Prime coves: Regency-era roysterers and young men-about-town.
  • Dimber mots: Pretty, possibly dangerous young ladies.
  • Knights of the Brush and Moon: Drunken fellows wandering amok in meadows and ditches, trying to stagger home.
  • Chaffing-crib: A room where drinking and bantering are going on.
  • Chicksters: Flamboyant ladies, often prostitutes
  • Ladybirds: Another term for chicksters
  • Bully rocks: Brothel muscle men
  • Abbess: Brothel madam
  • Mother H: A famous abbess from the 1830s
  • Bolt the Moon: Fly by night
  • Beaks: Magistrates and judges
  • Get fly to the fakement: Get wise to a swindle that's being perpetrated.
  • Dunwich, town of (spelled with no "T"): A seacoast town east of London, once very large, which eroded away and fell into the sea starting in the 13th century; only a few streets and houses remain today.
  • Dunwitch, Barony of (spelled with a "T"): A small estate in the hills West of Arkham, according to Colonial chronicler H.P. Lovecraft. Does not actually exist, but if it did, would be headed by Finn J.D. John, 18th Baron Dunwitch.
  • Dunsany, Barony of: A large estate in Ireland, including Dunsany Castle in County Meath, headed until 1957 by legendary fantasy author Edward J.M.D. Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany.
...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

The Penny Dreadful Hour: A Feast of Early-Victorian Street Literature and StoriesBy Finn J.D. John/ Pulp-Lit Productions

  • 4.4
  • 4.4
  • 4.4
  • 4.4
  • 4.4

4.4

9 ratings


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

View all
Focus on the Family with Jim Daly by Focus on the Family

Focus on the Family with Jim Daly

4,854 Listeners

Offbeat Oregon History podcast by www.offbeatoregon.com (finn @ offbeatoregon.com)

Offbeat Oregon History podcast

195 Listeners

The Ancients by History Hit

The Ancients

3,272 Listeners

Everything Everywhere Daily by Gary Arndt

Everything Everywhere Daily

2,131 Listeners

Short History Of... by NOISER

Short History Of...

2,819 Listeners