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Yesterday’s Papers

A scholar’s blog on the penny dreadfuls, story papers, and crime fiction of the 19th century — the other side of the Atlantic from our own Dark Lantern Tales.

What You’ll Find There

Penny Dreadfuls

Sweeney Todd and his imitators

The long weekly serials that filled London newsstands from the 1840s onward — bloodcurdling tales, their authors, and the publishing economy that fed them.

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Illustrators

Who drew the villains

The largely anonymous engravers whose woodcuts made the penny dreadful and the dime novel visually unforgettable.

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Serial Fiction

Detective fiction before Holmes

The detective as a popular literary figure traces back decades before Sherlock — Yesterday’s Papers tracks the prehistory.

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