A-Z Challenge continues with the letter H and today I'm focusing on The Hangman's Plot. My initial goal was to feature The Calendar of Horrors, an earlier publication of Gothic penny dreadfuls, but in truth, there was little information to find. That said, I switched penny dreadful topics to another more robust story, The Dance of Death; or, The Hangman’s Plot. "The Dance of Death; or, The Hangman’s Plot"
Newsagents' Publishing Company, a publishing company known for it's bloody content created The Dance of Death; or, The Hangman’s Plot in 1866. It was a serial publication that originally referenced Detective Brownlow and Sergeant Tuevoleur of the French Police as authors. Oocities.org had an extremely detailed article on this publication. It mentions that those names were pseudonyms and that the "real author was unknown." Additionally, when I searched for the book, I found it lists Newsagents' Publishing Company as the author.
The Dance of Death and Newsagents' went overboard with the blood and other graphic writing that was not suitable for their target readers, young boys. According to Yesterday's Papers, a blog by John AdCock, "this penny dreadful ran to 182 pages approximately 23 weeks of 8 page penny parts and reads like each part was written by a parliament of drunken hacks fighting a deadline." When the tale turned sordid, with the sex, violence and even a mention on incest, the public eventually lost interest. What's also disturbing were the promotions these publishers ran at the time. E.S. Turner's wrote about a penny dreadful publication, 'Boys' Weekly' in a book he wrote called Boys Will Be Boys. He explains the publishers created elaborate promotional drawings, inviting readers who were mostly boys to participate and the prizes were "'six splendid guns', 'sixteen costly stilettos', and twenty volumes of Lives of Notorious French Criminals." Seems a bit odd to be giving away guns after you've fed your readership with nothing but violent tales, huh?
The Dance of Death and Newsagents' went overboard with the blood and other graphic writing that was not suitable for their target readers, young boys. According to Yesterday's Papers, a blog by John AdCock, "this penny dreadful ran to 182 pages approximately 23 weeks of 8 page penny parts and reads like each part was written by a parliament of drunken hacks fighting a deadline." When the tale turned sordid, with the sex, violence and even a mention on incest, the public eventually lost interest. What's also disturbing were the promotions these publishers ran at the time. E.S. Turner's wrote about a penny dreadful publication, 'Boys' Weekly' in a book he wrote called Boys Will Be Boys. He explains the publishers created elaborate promotional drawings, inviting readers who were mostly boys to participate and the prizes were "'six splendid guns', 'sixteen costly stilettos', and twenty volumes of Lives of Notorious French Criminals." Seems a bit odd to be giving away guns after you've fed your readership with nothing but violent tales, huh?
Where can I get a copy of The Dance of Death; or, The Hangman’s Plot?
I was not able to find the penny dreadful version in an e-copy format. The only one I found was a hard copy via Google Books.
That's it for the Letter H. How's the A-Z Challenge treating you guys?
Mina Burrows
