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• penny dreadful
  penny dreadful

  noun

  a cheap, sensational novel of adventure, crime, or violence; dime novel.
• penny-dreadful
  penny-dreadful

  noun

  a cheap, often lurid or sensational book or magazine

penny dreadful

American  

noun

Chiefly British.

penny dreadfuls plural

1. a cheap, sensational novel of adventure, crime, or violence; dime novel.

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penny-dreadful British  

noun

1. informal a cheap, often lurid or sensational book or magazine

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Etymology

Origin of penny dreadful

First recorded in 1870–75

Example Sentences

Casey links the newspaper era that parallels the rise of the penny dreadful with the gestation of the 19th century idea of "new journalism."

From Salon • Jan. 11, 2021

Van Helsing educates Victor in the ways of vampires with the help of a penny dreadful called “Varney the Vampire, or The Feast of Blood,” and then practically adopts the young doctor on the street.

From New York Times • Jun. 15, 2014

All Victorian life is here, which means the novel itself becomes a kind of freakshow, obsessed with its relationship to its own cleverly chosen epigraphs and the "penny dreadful" tales to which characters allude.

From The Guardian • Oct. 11, 2012

He refers to his adopted nephew as a “foundling,” as if this were a penny dreadful, which it kind of is.

From Slate • Jun. 13, 2012

On his bedside table were loose matches, unused stationery, a penny dreadful left facedown at the page he had stopped reading.

From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros