A complete issue · 298 pages · 1889
A Heart's Bitterness
A complete, restored issue of Penny Dreadfuls from 1889 — all 298 pages of cheap serialized Victorian sensation fiction — crime, horror, and lurid melodrama, free to page through at ComicBooks.com.
A complete issue · 298 pages · 1889
This issue of The Select Series (May 1889) features the serialized novella "A Heart's Bitterness," author unnamed, a domestic romance concerning Violet Ainslie, a wealthy heiress raised in isolation by her grandmother in Lincolnshire. Violet, now eighteen and possessing two million pounds, has announced her engagement to Lord Norman Leigh, surprising her circle including her mentor, the widowed Lady Burton. Lady Burton harbors concerns about Violet's emotional readiness, having been raised sheltered from society and suspicious of suitors. In intimate conversation, Violet admits to Lady Burton that she does not truly know whether she loves Lord Leigh, though she is committed to her duty. The narrative develops tension between Violet's inexperience, her vast fortune's complications in attracting sincere affection, and anxieties inherited from her deceased mother, Lady Lucy Montressor, whose own marriage proved unfortunate.
Each page has its own page — the cartoon, who’s in it, and what the satire means.