A complete issue · 396 pages · 1867
Geheimnisse des Londoner Hofes
A complete, restored issue of Penny Dreadfuls from 1867 — all 396 pages of cheap serialized Victorian sensation fiction — crime, horror, and lurid melodrama, free to page through at ComicBooks.com.
A complete issue · 396 pages · 1867
This is volume five of Geheimniſſe des Londoner Hofes (Secrets of the London Court), a historical novel by G. W. M. Reynolds, translated into German by J. Morris. The narrative concerns Lord Florimel, a young nobleman who receives a letter from his betrothed, Pauline Clarendon, breaking their engagement and withdrawing from society to care for her afflicted sister. Florimel, puzzled by the rupture, consults the Duchess of Devonshire without clarification. His black page, Rao, then confides that his own sister was seduced and abandoned by an Englishman who promised marriage, resulting in an illegitimate child who died at birth. Rao claims to have come to England seeking revenge, though he refuses to name the seducer. The narrative proceeds with the arrival of Cresswell, Florimel's solicitor, bringing troubling legal news. The work combines romantic melodrama with social intrigue centered on aristocratic London life.
Each page has its own page — the cartoon, who’s in it, and what the satire means.