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.

Thank you for your support! Please, if you have a moment, rate us on your podcatcher network. If you’d like to do more, we do have a Patreon page; it’s here: https://patreon.com/pennydread

SHOW NOTES for EPISODE 12 (Season Six)

(July 26, 2026)

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 monthly cycle, one show per week. This is the TWOPENNY TORRIDS-theme show, featuring a handful of chapters from BLACK BESS; or, THE KNIGHT OF THE ROAD, starring highwayman Dick Turpin, along with the more salacious bits of early-Victoriana such as racy songs and dirty jokes. It will be followed by ...

• The “Sixpenny Spookies” theme episode, coming next Sunday (the first Sunday of next month);
• The “Graanum Gothics” theme episode, coming two Sundays hence, on the second Sunday of next month; and finally—
• The “Ha'penny Horrors” theme episode, coming on the third Sunday of next month.

Then we’ll be right back around to the “Twopenny Torrids” again, for the fourth Sunday of next month!

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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 "TWOPENNY TORRIDS" EPISODE:

• 01:40: STREET POETRY: From a broadside ballad: “Something, a Parody on Nothing” (a funny ditty about contemporary Victorian life) and “William and Dinah,” a tragic ballad of forbidden love (1835).
• 06:30: BLACK BESS; or, THE KNIGHT OF THE ROAD (starring HIGHWAYMAN DICK TURPIN), Chapter 80-84: Fleeing from the dragoons down a beautiful peaceful country lane, Dick Turpin sees a beautiful young woman looking hopefully toward him. Then she springs forward joyously, kisses him and greets him as Percy. She’s mistaken him for someone else!
• He goes along with it, hoping to get a chance to slip away later; but then he learns something about the missing man Percy that complicates things. And then, just as he’s settling in, the dragoons arrive, looking for Highwayman Dick Turpin. Will the family figure out who he is?
• 48:10: INTRODUCING MISS BIRD: One of the “ladies of the evening” listed and described in Harris’s List of Covent-garden Ladies, a directory for bucks and bloods out on the town in the early 1800s. The writer of Harris’s List does not seem to have liked Miss Bird very much.
• 51:20: TWO RATHER NAUGHTY COCK-AND-HEN-CLUB SONGS: "I’d Be a Little Flea” (in which our singer fantasizes about the lovely ladyparts that loathsome parasites get to roam about on at will; this one is pretty icky) and “The Slashing Big Drover-boy,” a cockney chaunt about a happy, sexually hyperactive young sheep merchant from Smithfield Market.
• 55:14: A FEW MILDLY DIRTY JOKES from what passed in 1830 for a dirty joke book: "The Joke-Cracker" by Martin Merryman, Esq.

GLOSSARY OF EARLY-VICTORIAN SLANG USED IN THIS EPISODE:

• AUTEM GOGGLERS: (from intro) xxx
• TATT MEN: (ibid) xxx.
• KNIGHTS OF THE ROAD: (ibid) Highway robbers.

• LOSE YOUR NOSE BY THE FROST: (from broadside ballad) Late-stage syphilis sometimes caused its victims’ noses to slough off, and to avoid admitting they had “the pox” victims sometimes would blame their disfigurement on frostbite.

• JACKY: (ibid) Gin.
• SLUICE YOUR IVORIES: (ibid) Take a big drink.
• LEARY: (from cock-and-hen-club song, “I’d Be a Little Flea”) Knowing, clever, canny.
• BLOWENS: (ibid) Whores.
• MOT: (ibid) Another word for “blowen.”
• GATTER: (ibid) Beer.
• SCHICKSTER: (ibid) A woman, with the implication that she is a little bit slutty.
• CRIB: (ibid) In 1834 “crib” did not yet mean a prostitute’s lair, and simply meant any house or residence.
• KINCHIN: (ibid) Child.
• THREE HOG: (ibid) Three shillings.

THERE'S MORE! But we're out of space here. For the rest of the flash-cant definitions, plus images, see pennydread.com/discord!