Special Collections Blog

Categories

Archive: "street literature" Tag

Gothic novels and other tales of terror

October 27, 2021 by Maggie Kopp • , ,

Looking for some Halloween reading suggestions? We bring you a grim and grisly new addition to the Victorian Collection: the 1847 anonymous Gothic novel The Mysterious Avenger. Issued by a Yorkshire publisher, this cheaply produced “penny dreadful” features everything a reader might expect in a modern horror thriller. Spooky locales? Sinister characters? The supernatural? Revenge? …

Read More →

The Victorian “Shilling Shocker”

August 4, 2017 by Maggie Kopp • ,

The Victorian period saw a huge growth in literacy in the British Isles. In 1841, around 2/3 of adult men were literate and 1/2 of adult women were literate. By the end of the century, literacy was almost universal, with 97% of all adults able to read. As the lower classes joined the ranks of …

Read More →

Recent Posts

Archives