penny dreadful

Thân thiện

A boy reads a penny dreadful under his blanket with a flashlight.

Definition

Noun: 1. A cheap, sensational novel of low literary quality: A "penny dreadful" is a type of inexpensive, mass-produced publication, popular in 19th-century Britain, featuring melodramatic and often violent or thrilling stories aimed at a working-class audience.

Usage and Examples

• Noun:
  • In Victorian England, many young readers were captivated by the exciting tales found in a penny dreadful.
  • The story was so over-the-top and poorly written that the critic dismissed it as a mere penny dreadful.

Advanced Usage

• The term is often used historically to describe the specific genre of 19th-century British fiction.
• In modern usage, "penny dreadful" can be used figuratively as a pejorative term for any contemporary book, film, or show considered to be of similarly low, sensational quality.
  • That new horror movie isn't art; it's just a modern penny dreadful.

Variants and Related Words

• Dime novel (noun): The American equivalent of the penny dreadful, referring to cheap, sensational fiction popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
• Shilling shocker (noun): A similar term used in the 19th century, sometimes implying a slightly higher price point.

Synonyms

• Sensationalist fiction
• Pulp fiction
• Potboiler

Idioms and Phrases

• While not a phrasal verb, the term itself functions as a fixed noun phrase. Its meaning is derived from the combination of "penny" (referring to its low cost) and "dreadful" (referring to its often poor quality or frightening content).

Học thuật

Noun

1. a melodramatic paperback novel

Từ đồng nghĩa

• dime novel