A complete issue · 248 pages · 1841
Angelina: Or, The Mystery of St. Mark's Abbey
A complete, restored issue of Penny Dreadfuls from 1841 — all 248 pages of cheap serialized Victorian sensation fiction — crime, horror, and lurid melodrama, free to page through at ComicBooks.com.
A complete issue · 248 pages · 1841
ANGELINA; or, The Mystery of St. Mark's Abbey A serialized Gothic romance by Thomas Prest, originally published in The Penny Sunday Times and People's Police Gazette and collected here in 1841. Two peasant girls, cousins Angelina and Laura, visit the ruins of St. Mark's Abbey despite warnings of hauntings and robbers. Sheltering from a violent thunderstorm inside, they encounter a ghostly female figure in white, bearing a wand and a blazing star on her forehead. The apparition fixes its unearthly gaze upon Angelina and speaks, commanding her to approach. Laura faints; Angelina, gathering courage, demands to know the figure's identity. The narrative establishes a mystery centered on Angelina's origins—her parents died in infancy and she was raised by her uncle, a humble but honest cottager. The figure's supernatural appearance masks an unresolved earthly secret.
Each page has its own page — the cartoon, who’s in it, and what the satire means.