A complete issue · 400 pages · 1860
The Mysteries of the Court of London
A complete, restored issue of Penny Dreadfuls from 1860 — all 400 pages of cheap serialized Victorian sensation fiction — crime, horror, and lurid melodrama, free to page through at ComicBooks.com.
A complete issue · 400 pages · 1860
The Mysteries of the Court of London, Volume V, is a serialized melodrama featuring French émigré nobleman and their English associates conspiring to restore royalty in post-Revolutionary France. The narrative follows French refugee nobles—the Marquis de Saint Croix, the Marquis de Bellois, and the Duke de Villebelle—alongside Mr. Page, an English intermediary connected to the Prince of Wales. Their conference concerns raising funds and support for a Royalist uprising in La Vendée, with the Duke possessing fifty thousand pounds in bank notes for military purposes. The story encompasses forty chapters involving murder mysteries, Newgate prison scenes, searches for heirs, investigations of suspicious deaths, courtroom ordeals, and deathbed revelations. Among the named characters are a "Monster-Man," an "Invalid," a "Murderess," and various figures from patrician and plebeian social strata. The plot encompasses concealment, family secrets, legal proceedings, and deeds of vengeance, presenting a complex narrative of political intrigue, crime, and aristocratic scandal.
Each page has its own page — the cartoon, who’s in it, and what the satire means.