Join host Corinthian Finn, a.k.a. Finn J.D. John 18th Baron Dunwitch,* for a one-hour-long spree through the scandal-sheets and story papers of early-Victorian London!

This show cycles through four themes over a four-week cycle, one show per week. This is the GRAANUM GOTHICS theme show, featuring Varney the Vampyre and other Gothic drama. It will be followed by ...

• The “Ha’penny Horrors” theme episode, coming next Sunday (the third Sunday of the month);
• The “Twopenny Torrids” theme episode, coming two Sundays hence (the fourth Sunday); and finally—
• The “Sixpenny Spookies” theme episode, coming out the first Sunday of next month.

(but there are five Sundays this month! So a surprise bonus episode will be coming your way on Sunday, Aug. 30!)

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For COMPLETE SHOW NOTES, including art and links to resources, see ⁠⁠pennydread.com/discord.⁠⁠

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IN TODAY'S "GRAANUM GOTHICS" EPISODE:

• 02:05: ON THIS DREADFUL DAY (August 9, 1854): A fearful thunderstorm came over Ipswitch, and a great bolt of lightning struck the schoolhouse at Capel St. Mary.
• 07:45: VARNEY THE VAMPYRE; or, THE FEAST OF BLOOD, Chapter 62-63: The story returns to the ruined abbey in which the prisoner is incarcerated. It’s midnight. A tall man in a full cloak is waiting for someone to meet him there. That second man arrives, cloaked as is the first, and they hold council. The second man tells the first that he has overheard a pothouse conversation in which a townie makes plans to come to the ruined abbey to watch for the vampire. While doing so, the newcomer addresses the man who had waited for him as Sir Francis Varney. — They have a furtive colliquoy about what to do now that things have come to such a pass. The newcomer wants to murder the prisoner — who we learn is in very fact Charles Holland ….
• 49:20: CATCHPENNY BROADSIDE: “The Rent Day; or, Black Monday Morning.” A fun little sorta-epistolary bit of street storytelling following a slummy landlord on his rounds trying to collect the rents, in the form of dialogues.
• 54:45: THE LIVES OF THE HIGHWAYMEN: Where do you suppose the ranks of highwaymen were kept full during the Georgian period? How were they recruited, how did they learn the ways of real gentlemen so that they could ape them on the road? Today we talk about the manservant-to-highwayman pipeline, circa 1750. When you think of a manservant, you might think of Jeeves; but, that wasn’t typical back then ….
• 1:04:05: THE BODY SNATCHER by Robert Louis Stevenson, PART 2 OF 2: In which Wolfe Macfarlane commits a murder and covers it up by having his victim dissected; but the deed comes back to haunt him … literally.
• 1:20:02: A FEW SQUEAKY-CLEAN DAD JOKES from the early-1800s' most popular joke book: "Joe Miller's Jests; or, The Wit's Vade-mecum."

GLOSSARY OF EARLY-VICTORIAN SLANG USED IN THIS EPISODE:

• BUCKS, BLOODS AND CHOICE SPIRITS: (from intro patter) Young men running amok.
• KNIGHTS OF THE BRUSH AND MOON (ibid): Drunken fellows wandering amok in meadows and ditches, trying to stagger home.
• CORINTHIAN (ibid): A fancy toff or titled swell. Used here as a reference to Corinthian Tom, the quintessential Regency rake depicted in Pierce Egan's "Life in London" (usually referred to as "Tom and Jerry").
• CHAFFING-CRIB (ibid): A room where drinking and bantering are going on.
• SHE-LION (ibid): A shilling.
• JET AUTEMS (ibid): Parsons and preachers.
• GUNPOWDERS (ibid): Spicy old ladies.
• GENTRY COVES (ibid): Titled aristocrats.
• YARD (as in “yard of white tape”) (ibid): A glass or tumbler full of liquor. White tape was gin.
• FULLER’S EARTH (ibid): Gin.
• PIKE OFF (from outro patter): Run away.
• RED WAISTCOAT (ibid): The traditional uniform of the Bow-Street Runners, London’s first real professional police force.

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