penny dreadful
Black Bess; or, The Knight of the Road: A romanticized tale of w:Dick TurpinDick Turpin.
Meaning
Noun
- A cheap paperback book, particularly those concerning lurid depictions of crime in the Victorian era.
- Pulp fiction: stories written in the lurid style of the penny dreadfuls.
Origin
- From their low price and the lower-class British use of dreadful.
Modern English dictionary
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