penny dreadful
Contents
English[edit]

Black Bess; or, The Knight of the Road: A romanticized tale of Dick Turpin.
Etymology[edit]
From their low price and the lower-class British use of dreadful (“sensationalized crime reporting”).
Noun[edit]
penny dreadful (plural penny dreadfuls)
- (originally pejorative, now usually historical) A cheap paperback book, particularly those concerning lurid depictions of crime in the Victorian era.
- (originally pejorative, now usually historical) Pulp fiction: stories written in the lurid style of the penny dreadfuls.
Usage notes[edit]
Also used attributively as an adjective.
Derived terms[edit]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- Oxford English Dictionary, "penny, n.", 2005.