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 old London!

PART I: “The HALF-CROWN CAMPIES” segment: 0:00 — 32:00:

• 01:20: VARNEY THE VAMPYRE; or, THE FEAST OF BLOOD, Chapter 31: We open the scene on Sir Francis Varney is in his home. He is awaiting a visitor, whom he dreads. We learn from his nervous mutterings that this visit occurs once a year, at which the visitor exacts a price which Varney must pay “for that existence, which but for him had been long since terminated.” Who can this visitor be, who fills the fearsome and dreadful Varney the Vampyre with such terror and loathing?
• 26:02: BROADSIDE BALLAD: A jocose street song about a silly prophecy that London would be hit with a tremendous earthquake.
• 30:15: TERRIFIC REGISTER ARTICLE: The story of a noble lion who, after running amok in Venice, treated a dropped baby with great care.

PART II: "THE SIXPENNY SPOOKIES," 32:45 — 1:09:45:

• 33:00: EARLY VICTORIAN GHOSTLY SHORT STORY, TO-WIT: Wake Not the Dead, by Ernst Raupach, Part 3 of 4: In which:: Walter’s castle daily grows more empty and desolate, as everyone with children takes them away to save them from the vampire’s curse. All that remains are old people, whose tired blood Brunhilda considers unsuitable; and, of course, Walter’s two children. Walter, enthralled by her spell, doesn’t even notice. Brunhilda is like a magic sex robot — loving and passionate with him, cold and distant to everything else, but fueled by young blood, which she obtains by making herself charming to her victim before lulling him or her to sleep and draining from his or her young bosom the purple tide of life. She now sets out to charm and slake herself with Walter’s children….
• 54:00: A SHORT GHOST STORY from the scrapbook of Charles Lindley, Viscount Halifax: The story of a traveler who, murdered for the cash with which he was traveling, appeared in ghost form the following week to bring his murderer to justice.
• 1:00:30: A BONUS GHOST STORY from the Terrific Register (1825): A legend of a ghostly character that appeared to Napoleon Bonaparte and foretold his fall.
• 1:07:45: A FEW SQUEAKY-CLEAN DAD JOKES from the early-1800s' most popular joke book: "Joe Miller's Jests; or, The Wit's Vade-mecum."

*The Barony of Dunwitch is located in a deep forest glade west of Arkham (where, as H.P. Lovecraft put it, “the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut; there are dark narrow glens where the trees slope fantastically, and where thin brooklets trickle without ever having caught the glint of sunlight.”) Actually it is a good 3,000 miles west of Arkham. It is not to be confused with Dunwich, the English seacoast town that fell house by house into the sea centuries ago, or Dunsany, the home until 1957 of legendary fantasy author Edward J.M.D. Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany.

GLOSSARY OF FLASH TERMS USED IN THIS EPISODE:

• NATTY LADS: Young well-dressed pickpockets.
• LIVELY KIDDIES: Funny fellows.
• KNIGHTS OF THE BRUSH AND MOON: Drunken fellows wandering amok in meadows and ditches, trying to stagger home.
• CORINTHIAN: 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: A room where drinking and bantering are going on.
• CLANKERS: Pewter drinking pots.
• ENGLISH BURGUNDY: Strong ale or barleywine.
• AUTEM BAWLERS: Preachers.
• BABES OF GRACE: Puritanical sanctimonious-looking persons, especially if they are drunk. Think of Mr. Lupin from Sweeney Todd.
• VADE MECUM: Latin for "hand book."

There are more! But we’re out of space here. A full glossary of all the flash-cant terms used in this episode is at ⁠https://pennydread.com/discord⁠ in the "#season-4-episodes" thread.

This is our hour-long Ha'penny Horrid 'Hursday episode, the second of our two weekly shows. It comes in two parts, to-wit:

PART I: "THE HA’PENNY HORRIDS," 0:00 — 44:30:

• 01:00: DICKENS' DREADFUL ALMANAC for today: A dentist pounced upon and nearly choked to death by a gang of thieves.
• 03:15: SWEENEY TODD, THE BARBER OF FLEET-STREET, Chapter 72-73: We look in on Arabella to see how she is handling her feelings of responsibility for Johanna’s recklessness. And the verdict is – not well. She can’t figure out what to do. She can’t leave her there, for she’ll get killed; she can’t tell Mr. Oakley; or talk to her friends. What to do? She decides — surprisingly, for her decisionmaking so far has been pretty bad — to do something really very smart and sensible: Lay the whole mess out before Sir Richard Blunt. Meanwhile, Johanna is getting the full import of what it is to be Sweeney Todd’s apprentice boy … how is she holding up? Better than you might have expected! But will it be good enough? We shall see …
• 33:30: CRIME BROADSIDE: The final hours of six petty criminals sacrificed to the brutal bloodlust of a barbaric age in Britain.
• 42:00: TERRIFIC REGISTER ARTICLE: A man who murdered his wife for insurance money faced his execution with total sang-froid.

PART II: "THE TWOPENNY TORRIDS," 00:00 — 00:00:

• 45:15: BLACK BESS; or, THE KNIGHT OF THE ROAD (starring HIGHWAYMAN DICK TURPIN), Chapter 40: Dick Turpin and Tom King press on into the New Forest, hoping to find a place of refuge for the night. Just as they are about to give up and settle in for an uncomfortable night under a tree, King spots a light, deep in the forest. The highwaymen follow the light, hoping it will lead to a warm place to rest … instead, it leads them to a dark, silent hollow, at the bottom of which they see a gaunt figure, digging what looks like a shallow grave ….
• 1:08:30: SOME STREET POETRY from an 1830s “broadside”: "The Bloody Gardener’s Lament.”
• 1:15:45: A RATHER NAUGHTY COCK-AND-HEN-CLUB SONG: "Pity the Sorrows of a Poor Old Mot” (about a prostitute contemplating the approach of retirement age)
• 1:21:30: A FEW MILDLY DIRTY JOKES from what passed in 1830 for a dirty joke book: "The Joke-Cracker."

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 old London, every Sunday and Thursday evening at 5:37 p.m. London time!

* The Barony of Dunwitch is located in a wood west of Arkham (where, as H.P. Lovecraft put it, “the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut; there are dark narrow glens where the trees slope fantastically, and where thin brooklets trickle without ever having caught the glint of sunlight.”) Actually it is a good 3,000 miles west of Arkham. It is not to be confused with Dunwich, the English seacoast town that fell house by house into the sea centuries ago, or Dunsany, the home until 1957 of legendary fantasy author Edward J.M.D. Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany.

GLOSSARY OF FLASH TERMS USED IN THIS EPISODE:

• GAMMONERS: Gamesters, gamblers, or confidence men.
• HIGH FLYERS: Tip-toppers, first-raters.
• KNIGHTS OF THE BRUSH AND MOON: Drunken fellows wandering amok in meadows and ditches, trying to stagger home.
• CORINTHIAN: 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: A room where drinking and bantering are going on.
• MOT: Whore or lady of easy virtue.
• PAD IT: In context of today’s bawdy song, to walk the street soliciting for a “john.”
• TOGGERY: Clothing.
• COUTER: A sovereign — a coin worth £1.
• KID: In the context of today’s bawdy song, a lover or playmate.

There are more! But we’re out of space here. A full glossary of all the flash-cant terms used in this episode is at ⁠https://pennydread.com/discord⁠ in the "#season-4-episodes" thread.

This is our main one-hour Sunday-night episode. Including, after the break, the "Sixpenny Spookies" segment.

PART I: “The HALF-CROWN CAMPIES” segment: 0:00 — 37:40:

• 01:10: VARNEY THE VAMPYRE; or, THE FEAST OF BLOOD, Chapter 29-30: Now we cut to a new scene, in a ruined abbey near Bannerworth Hall, in a dungeon-cell beneath which there is a man locked up, battered and dazed and bearing the marks of a desperate struggle. He is not identified, but it seems nearly certain that it’s Charles Holland. His two captors have come to his cell with a scroll and a pen, and they’re trying to get him to sign the scroll, but he’s still too dazed and concussed to do it. They give up for the time being and leave. — So … what’s the scroll? Who are the two captors? And is this Charles, imprisoned in the cell?
• (Here is a link to London pop historian Jenny Draper’s 40-minute YouTube video on the Dissolution of the Monasteries)
• 30:20: BROADSIDE BALLAD: Another fictional cautionary tale for young Victorian women, warning them not to patronize fortune-tellers, or THIS could happen to YOU!
• 34:10: TERRIFIC REGISTER ARTICLE: What do you do when your doppleganger turns out to have committed a capital crime? If you’re smart, and you live in pre-Victorian Britain under the “bloody code,” you run. If you’re not smart, well, you do what this guy did ...

PART II: "THE SIXPENNY SPOOKIES," 38:00 — 1:20:30:

• 38:30: EARLY VICTORIAN GHOSTLY SHORT STORY, TO-WIT: WAKE NOT THE DEAD, Part 2 of 4: Walter brings Brunhilda to the castle to accustom her to the the daylight. When finally she is ready, though, Walter reaches for her and she rebuffs him: She won’t be his concubine, she tells him; he must first get rid of his new wife. Well, of course, he does; and after that, can there be any barrier to Walter’s happiness? Well, yes … because now that Brunhilda is back at his side, the youths of his domain suddenly start wasting away, almost as if some night-stalking monster was sucking their blood from them …
• 59:00: A SHORT GHOST STORY from the scrapbook of Charles Lindley, Viscount Halifax: We finish the story of the many hauntings of Hinton Ampner, a great English country-house in Hampshire; recounted by a lady who lived there for seven years.
• 1:18:10: A FEW SQUEAKY-CLEAN DAD JOKES from the early-1800s' most popular joke book: "Joe Miller's Jests; or, The Wit's Vade-mecum."

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 old London!

*The Barony of Dunwitch is located in a deep forest glade west of Arkham (where, as H.P. Lovecraft put it, “the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut; there are dark narrow glens where the trees slope fantastically, and where thin brooklets trickle without ever having caught the glint of sunlight.”) Actually it is a good 3,000 miles west of Arkham. It is not to be confused with Dunwich, the English seacoast town that fell house by house into the sea centuries ago, or Dunsany, the home until 1957 of legendary fantasy author Edward J.M.D. Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany.

GLOSSARY OF FLASH TERMS USED IN THIS EPISODE:

• FAULKNERS: Acrobats.

• DIMBER DAMBERS: Leaders of the canting crew.

• KNIGHTS OF THE BRUSH AND MOON: Drunken fellows wandering amok in meadows and ditches, trying to stagger home.

• CORINTHIAN: 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: A room where drinking and bantering are going on.

• OLD TOM: Top-shelf gin.

• DANDIES: Fops, high-class airheads; Bertie Wooster types.

• RATTLING GLOAKS: Simple-minded, easygoing fellows who like to talk.

There are more! But we’re out of space here. A full glossary of all the flash-cant terms used in this episode is at ⁠https://pennydread.com/discord⁠ in the "#season-4-episodes" thread.