This month, we begin our adaptation of James Malcolm Rymer’s almost 2000-page long Penny Blood novel, Varney the Vampire, which appeared between 1845-1847. This ongoing project will occupy us for the next few years, and we’re very excited to begin with a series of vertical episodes taken from the novel (you’ll find the link here: https://www.tiktok.com/@pennybloodpodcasts). These three-to-five-minute stories feature graphics based on designs popular in Pollock’s Toy Theatres and introduce the tone of Rymer’s novel, as well as some of its key thematic elements.

So what was Penny Blood fiction and where did it come from? The name describes thrilling tales of adventure, crime, and the supernatural. “These stories,”writes Mimi Matthews, “told in installments and printed on inexpensive pulp paper, were originally only eight pages long [though sometimes sixteen] and sold for just a penny.” They followed from a series of social and industrial changes in nineteenth-century Britain. First, improved print technology greatly reduced publication costs of text and images. This allowed Penny Blood publishers to present their stories in inexpensive editions, famous for glaringly sensational cover drawings.

Next, rising literacy among the working and middle classes greatly expanded the market for popular literature. Louis James believes that the period produced “at least 40,000 individual novels, but this does not include the mass of fiction that appeared in periodical form, nor the huge subliterature of penny issue and cheap paperback romances” (193). Finally, the growing urbanization of British society led people to leave the countryside’s rural lifestyles and move to the city, becoming part of an increasingly industrial workforce. Novels and lending libraries, generally expensive at this time, remained unavailable to readers with modest incomes. These people worked hard and sought diversion at low cost, which they found in Penny Bloods and other inexpensive periodicals.

And penny fiction proved explosively popular. Between 1830 and 1850, Stacey McDowell observes, some titles sold almost 40,000 copies an issue, with combined sales totaling about a million copies a week. People shared copies and groups read them aloud, Rebecca Nesvet points out, so the number of those actually following the Penny Bloods exceeds the number of issues in circulation (Burz-Labrande 20, qtd. in Nesvet). Though almost one hundred publishers produced penny fiction, three dominated the market. Edward Lloyd brought out “The String of Pearls,” with its famous hero Sweeney Todd, and Varney the Vampyre, both written by Rymer. Lloyd gained notoriety — and Charles Dickens’s considerable displeasure — by plagiarizing the author’s novels. George W. M. Reynolds released the immensely popular The Mysteries of London. Published over twelve years in more than six hundred editions and almost four-and-a-half million words, the weekly periodical recounted the adventures and misdeeds of London’s demimonde (Flanders).

By the later nineteenth century, the audience for these tales generally shifted from middle- and working-class adults toward younger readers, and became known as Penny Dreadfuls. Edwin J. Brett, among others, profited from this shift, publishing penny fiction targeted at adolescents. This included the often-sensational stories in Boys of England, which broadly supported empire. As Patrick Dunae writes, social critics condemned the largely domestic crime and violence featured in the Penny Bloods early in the century. But later in the period, critics proved more forgiving of stories presented in colonial settings that indirectly supported an imperial ideology. “[S]ocial values…had…changed, and themes expressed in the old dreadfuls had been tamed, politicized, and redirected to serve the needs of empire… [What was once] denounced as ‘blood and thunder’ came…to be regarded…as wholesome and patriotic” (Dunae 150).

Which brings us to Varney. Tales of vampires have a long tradition, first moving into the mainstream of British literature with Byron’s 1813 Orientalist poem The Giaour. Subsequent important contributions to the genre include John William Polidori’s 1819 The Vampyre, and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 gender transgressive Carmilla. All of these influenced writings like Bram Stoker’s 1897 Dracula and others that followed. Notably, Tod Browning’s 1931 film adaptation of Stoker’s novel uses the famous line “I never drink... wine.” That line comes not from Dracula, but from Varney.

While Penny Bloods attracted a popular and to some degree youthful audience, that does not mean that they lacked serious ideological components. Scholars like Ian Haywood have identified connections between the Penny Blood narratives and issues raised by Britain’s Chartist movement, which sought social justice and electoral fairness for the working and middle classes (139-161). Others, like Brooke Cameron, have connected the Penny Bloods with feminist themes such as the so-called “marriage market,” a trope perhaps most familiar from works by Francis Burney and Jane Austen. Here, a woman of wealthy family marries a titled man whose family has fallen on financial hard times. Or a wealthy man of moderate social status marries a titled woman whose family suffers economic distress. In either case, the woman circulates like currency, exchanged for prestige and financial enrichment. Especially in the second half of Varney, precisely this occurs. Family members repeatedly seem blind to the dangers of marrying their daughters to the mysterious, but wealthy Sir Francis Varney, in hopes of rising up the social ladder.

We hope that you enjoy our adaptation of James Malcolm Rymer’s epic novel. And don’t be afraid – it’s spooky, but family friendly, and features several wonderful comic characters along the way. If you enjoy our show, please like, share, and subscribe. And join our mailing list @ talesfromthepennybloods.org. And now, VARNEY THE VAMPYRE!!!

Works Cited/Consulted

Burz-Labrande, Manon. Penny Dreadfuls: The Circulation Patterns of a Victorian Popular Genre. Anthem Press, 2026.

Cameron Brooke. “Domestic Plots and Class Reform in Varney the Vampire.” Victorian Popular Fictions. Vol.4, No. 2 (Autumn 2022), pp. 47-62.

Dunae, Patrick. “Penny Dreadfuls: Late Nineteenth-Century Boys & Literature and Crime.” Victorian Studies. Vol. 22, No. 2 (Winter 1979), pp. 133-150.

Flanders, Judith. “Penny Dreadfuls.” British Library (https://www.britishlibrary.cn/en/articles/penny-dreadfuls).

Haywood, Ian. The Revolution in Popular Literature: Print, Politics and the People, 1790-1860. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

James, Louis. “The Rational Amusement: ‘Minor’ Fiction and Victorian Studies. Victorian Studies. Vol. 14, No. 2 (Dec. 1970), pp. 193-199.

Matthews, Mimi. “Penny Dreadfuls, Juvenile Crime, and Late-Victorian Moral Panic”. The Victorian Web: Literature, History, and Culture in the Age of Victoria (https://victorianweb.org/genre/matthews1.html).

McDowell, Stacey. “Penny Dreadfuls.” The Encyclopedia of the Gothic (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118398500.wbeotgp001).

Nesvet, Rebecca. “Much ‘Treasure’ at a Small Price: New Studies of Victorian PennyFiction.” The Victorian Web: Literature, History, and Culture in the Age of Victoria.(https://www.victorianweb.org/periodicals/nesvet.html)

Bringing to life short stories buried within the mighty tomes that are Varney the Vampire…

#verticals #vampires #varneythevampire #shorts #pennydreadfuls

…playing bagpipes and indulging in scandalous dancing!

What is going on? Tune in (see below) to find out in our latest auricular adventure, as it comes to radio this summer. Our latest, The Wraith of Barnjum, is based on the short story by F. Anstey, first published in 1879 in the Temple Bar magazine.

Part 1 & 2 of F. Anstey’s satire on the ghost genre out now on our Youtube channel :

The painting used in our animations is Jean Béraud’s The cafe in Paris (1900s)

And if you enjoy our shows, please subscribe to our newsletter @ talesfromthepennybloods.org - and share!

cannibalizes existing cultural content and turns it into something else. Something new, but not something original. This important distinction I want to address here.

For millennia, humans have created painting, music, literature, more recently photography and film, and all the other arts. Typically, each generation of artists has been influenced by and improvised upon what came before, consolidating earlier aesthetic expressions and making them their own. Sometimes, these expressions stayed the same for centuries (neolithic cave paintings, images of Egyptian pharaohs) and sometimes they changed in a few decades (Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, Op Art).

In the tradition of cathedral and mosque building, great collectives of artists and artisans worked together to create the final products, most contributors remaining anonymous. The Romantic period, at least partly in response to changes in copyright law, developed the idea of the artist as individual, and of good art, not only as a collective expression like an awe-inspiring building, but more often as the product of a single creative mind.

That creative mind introduced new media and styles, new movements. Originality became essential to art. Almost its defining trait. Great artists presented the world in new ways, showing audiences something never seen before, heard before, read before.

And most importantly, ideas never thought before. The question arises, then: can AI art be, not derivative, but genuinely original?

Imagination and Fancy, rejecting theories of the Imagination presented by John Locke and David Hume. Given that people exist and horses exist, combining the idea of a horse with that a person to yield a centaur would, from the Empiricists point of view, illustrate the poetic Imagination. For Coleridge, however, this fusion of elements demonstrates merely Fancy.

If Fancy combines existing ideas in new and interesting ways, Imagination goesfurther. Producing complex relationships between and among the parts and the whole, a profound sense of unity, the fusion of new meanings. For me, Imagination results in the unanticipated. The unpredictable. That which no one saw coming.

Surprise — here comes Fauvism! Listen up – it’s the Rites of Spring! And over there, why, it’s Ulysses! Humans imagine the unimaginable. Can AI do that?

I take liberties and illustrate inexactly, but consider this. Because of tradition, a cross carries meaning in and of itself, while the albatross in Coleridge’s famous Rime of the Ancient Mariner – particularly the original version published in the 1798 Lyrical Ballads — has no standalone symbolism (beyond perhaps the general notion that flying birds signify freedom and spirituality). The poet’s Imagination gives the albatross its – admittedly ambiguous — meaning, inserting it into a complex web of signification, yielding multiple interpretations about justice, redemption, empathy. Imagination, not Fancy.

Think about Imagination in another way, but instead of it creating original art, imagine it creating unique numbers. To date, scientists have difficulty getting computers to generate truly random – impossible to predict – numbers. They can, by a process called “entropy harvesting,” overload the system until it spits out numbers which seem – but are not truly — random.

Now consider the human Imagination, in its ability to transform old ideas and present experiences into something unpredictably new — as manifesting a kind of randomness. The unexpected. In the same way that computers cannot create random numbers, arguably AI cannot create something truly Imaginative.

Yes, AI can create the Fanciful – combining familiar genres of novels and music — which may be entertaining, even commercially successful. But when it comes to authentic cultural production, can AI exercise genuine Imagination? I’m not so sure. After all, if a program cannot generate a truly random number, can it create a complex work of art like King Lear? Moreover I believe that over time, the originality of AI art will decrease to become sterile and bland. Here’s why.

Right now, AI sometimes amazes because it creates in Fanciful ways, based on thousands of years of human history and ideas. It produces art, literature, and music by combining the cultural heritage of the past into new — if not original and

Imaginative — creative products. But consider the future. Fewer human artists create as AI generates more and more aesthetic output. Gone those individuals inspired by the past, rejecting the establishment, and creating avant-gardes. Instead, AI can only create based on what came before.

But without fresh and continuing human invention, what came before will simply be AI art. Computers copying, not Palladio and Hank Williams, but AI versions derived from their buildings and songs. The creative horizon will stop at a “before” and “after.” Before, from Neolithic to the ascendancy of AI art. And after, the point beyond which most art has been AI generated, with “new” AI art Fancifully reconfiguring elements of “old” AI art. Copies copying copies of copies copying copies.

True, even for humans, commercial requirements dictate that new art fall into established genres. But humans can create art outside existing styles and develop new genres (in painting, the rise of landscape, in literature, the rise of the novel. Gosh, in film, even the Romcom — inspired by Plautus’s Roman comedies — but you get my point). Moreover, technological and social changes affect aesthetics. The import of rare pigments into Venice influenced the colors used in Titian and Tintoretto’s paintings.

The English, American, and French Revolutions led to representations of non-aristocratic people (though perhaps it was the other way around). Magic lanterns begat photography which begat the cinema. Here, human artists evidence their Imagination. Invention grows out of people’s experiences and memories, suffering and revelations. Things to which AI by its very nature has no unmediated access.

If originality proves the worth of post-Romantic artistic expression, then works of art that simply copy and recombine existing aesthetic elements do not ascend to the level of greatness. Walter Benjamin raised a similar issue when comparing an original painting with its photograph. Even assuming them both identical, the original has an “aura” arising from the touch of the artist, coming as it does from the artist’s world. AI art has no aura.

Will future museum visitors love paintings created by AI as they now cherish those by Van Gogh? Will readers value AI coming-of-age novels more than those of Austen? Prefer AI pop tunes to Gershwin and McCartney? I think not. Perhaps instead, people will prize creative works marketed as “100% human art” as highly as today’s food articles labeled “certified organic.” For AI can deliver Fancy, but not Imagination.

Arnold Anthony Schmidt and Julia Warren, creators of the Tales from the

Penny Bloods podcast, produce audio plays based on nineteenth-century literature.

You can find their work @ talesfromthepennybloods.org.

Growing up in a middle-class home, Riddell married a civil engineer, a happy relationship challenged by her husband’s unsound business affairs. His death left her in financial difficulties because she insisted on paying all of his family’s debts, though not legally responsible for them. Consequently, despite publishing successful works, her later years found her in financial distress. So much so that in 1900, she received a pension from the Royal Literary Fund and the following year another from the Society of Authors. Riddell died in 1906 (Dawson 27-30).

During her life, though, Riddell prospered as an editor, publisher, and writer. Following several well-received early works, the 1864 appearance of the “City” novel George Geith of Fen Court established her reputation. In 1867, she edited St. James’s Magazine, a respected literary monthly which published works by “Sensation Novelist” Mary Elizabeth Braddon, who also worked as an editor (Brake 552). Riddel became part-owner, and later the editor of Home Magazine. As Mike Barrett notes, “within the space of just a few years, [Riddell] had become one of the leading writers of the day. Her output was high, with a total of over fifty titles in her career, her most productive period being the 1870s and the 1880s, during which time she had thirty-three books published, including twenty-five novels” (25).

While elements of Riddell’s narratives may feel familiar, she executes them with her own special twist. Consider The Uninhabited House, a “City” novel in which the supernatural predominates. The narrative culminates in the well-known marriage plot of a thwarted romance between lovers of different economic classes. Here, however, the ending differs from those of Frances Burney and Jane Austen in that the heiress proposes to the man, not the other way around. (Anthony Trollope presents similar proposals in Can You Forgive Her?, The Eustace Diamonds, and Phineas Finn). Riddell also imprints her signature style on “The House on Vauxhall Walk” and “The Squire of Ennismore,” reconfiguring the familiar tropes of the miserly ghost and the Faustian bargain. The two stories discussed here treat problematic male authority figures: the Admiral and the Squire. In different ways, both men undermine the existing social order, but in the end, supernatural events reestablish that order…one way or another.

Like many Victorian authors, Riddell published stories in the era’s Christmas annuals, among them “The Old House in Vauxhall Walk.” Midway through the tale, the narrator explains that “the pavements were full of people going marketing, for it was Christmas Eve, and all who had money to spend seemed bent on shopping.” As S. M. Ellis observes, the image Riddell elsewhere presents of the holiday season “rivals Dickens…picturing one of those good, comfortable…Yule-tides of the Mid-Victorian time” (295-296). “Vauxhall” originally appeared in 1880’s Routledge’s Christmas Annual before its collection two years later in Weird Stories, today the most celebrated anthology of Riddell’s supernatural tales.

Janis Dawson observes that “Riddell’s specialty was haunted houses; many of her finest stories feature formerly desirable houses neglected and untenanted because they harbor the spirits of wronged victims seeking justice” (30). Just so with “The Old House in Vauxhall Walk.” The tale opens with Graham Coulton wandering the streets after arguing with his father. The admiral disparaged his son’s mother and accused him of cowardice. As Graham says while walking aimlessly, “So far as he in his despair felt able to see or reason, the best thing he could do was to die. The world did not want him; he would be better out of it.” As luck would have it, Graham encounters Prudence, a family retainer now living in London, who offers him shelter for the night.

Unfortunately, Graham’s sleep remains unsettled. During the night, he encounters the ghost of Miss Tynan, “seated beside the fire…lifting and dropping sovereigns…an old, wrinkled hag, her clothes poor and ragged…her fingers more like talons than aught else as they dived down into the heap of gold… ‘Oh! my lost life,’ she moaned, in a voice of the bitterest anguish.”

Barrett believes that this murdered miser, “a pitiless, mean old woman… [ultimately feels] remorse for her callous actions” (28). One almost Expressionistic scene in the text illustrates that remorse when the older Miss Tynan confronts her younger self. As the old Miss Tynan watches, “from behind the great mirror there glided a second female figure, at the sight of which the first turned and fled, littering piercing shrieks as the other followed her” throughout the house. Andrew Smith sees this scene as key: “Tynan’s sister is scared away by an image of herself that is both reflected in the mirror and associated with the money which is behind the mirror” (74).

This scene raises several similarities that critics note between “Vauxhall” and Charles Dickens’s 1843 A Christmas Carol, which include stock elements like the gold and the miser. Here Miss Tynan, unlike the living Scrooge who may experience redemption, resembles Jacob Marley and the novel’s other ghosts, unable to make retribution for their worldly sins and hence doomed to suffer (Smith 73). Another Dickensian echo appears when Miss Tynan rejects her brother, reminiscent of young Scrooge’s painful breakup with Belle. This scene reminds the ghost – and informs the audience – that it was not ever thus, that the young Miss Tynan she felt free and loving. Still, Riddell’s and Dickens’s messages ultimately differ. As Smith points out, while the Christmas Carol ends urging charity for all, Miss Tynan’s gold does not help to feed the hungry. Coulton’s new-found wealth “reinstates him in a position which he would have maintained if he had not argued with his father. The money is thus used to restore Coulton rather than to improve the lot of the poor” (74). Coulton stays in the haunted house, proves his bravery, and reconciles with his father. The miser’s wealth aids the individual, not the collective.

Unlike the Admiral in “Vauxhall,” Riddell presents a different figure of male authority in “The Last of Squire Ennismore.” First published in 1888’s Idle Tales (Barrett 34), it features a protagonist described as “a terrible man. You couldn’t lay your tongue to a wickedness he had not been in the forefront of — drinking, dueling, gambling — all manner of sins had been meat and drink to him since he was a boy almost.” More insidiously, the Squire has made a secret arrangement with otherworldly powers that prevent him from growing old and weak. As the narrator explains, “it was said that he wanted to try and stay in this world for ever; and that he had got some secret drops that kept him well and hearty.”

When a shipwreck kills many sailors, the Squire’s sole concern lies in how he might profit from the accident. Ironically, though many souls perish, the only wealth that comes to him leads to his destruction. From the ship, he retrieves a barrel of brandy with magical properties. After that,

The gentry came from far and near to take share, and it was cards and dice, and drinking and story-telling night after night -- week in, week out. Even on Sundays, God forgive them!...But all at once people quit coming--a word went round that the liquor was not all it ought to be…. For one thing, they were losing money very fast.

The Squire does get his wish, winning in all games of chance that he plays. But, like the gambler in the Rod Serling’s 1960 Twilight Zone episode entitled “A Nice Place to Visit,” and in John L. Balderston’s 1935 radio play “The Other Place” which likely inspired it, winning all the time drains the fun out of gaming.

When the Squire meets a nefarious Stranger and shares his mysterious language, he establishes a bond of friendship. The Squire, no longer able to connect with the society of his neighbors, stands alone. Isolated and solitary, only his connection with the otherworldly Stranger offers companionship. Ultimately, the pleasures of gambling and drinking no longer satisfy him, and he decides to depart for the underworld. On the Squire’s birthday and in the light of the full moon, he and the Stranger walk off into the sea and disappear.

Riddell makes these two familiar tropes — of ghost stories and the Faustian contract — uniquely her own. In “Vauxhall,” Graham resolves the Admiral’s charge of cowardice not by proving his bravery in a military engagement, but by confronting the ghost. The Faustian bargain in “Squire” ends not with the Stranger dragging the Squire unwillingly away to the underworld (as in Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus), but with the Squire exercising agency and leaving of his own volition. In both cases, Riddell breathes new life into these well-known narrative turns. “Indeed,” writes Barrett, “if Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu is the Irish king of the nineteenth-century ghost story, then Charlotte Riddell must surely be considered the queen” (24).

Our Penny Blood adaptation of these two tales combines them into a single episode, remaining true to the originals, but enhancing some themes and adding a few of our trademark elements. We invite you to listen to “The Ghost of Vauxhall Walk” on Youtube @

and to subscribe to our podcast @ talesfromthepennybloods.org. And if you like our podcast, please spread the word!

Tune in at 95.5 FM, or go online to kcbpradio.org.

What’s more, KCBP Radio is scheduling our latest episode across the world, starting with Pacific Summer Time:

Saturday 4/4 @ 7 p.m. and 10 p.m., Sunday 4/5 @ 1 p.m., and Tuesday 4/7 @ 2 p.m. PST

Then in UK/Europe times:

Saturday 4/4 @ 9 a.m. GMT, Sunday 4/5 @ 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. GMT, Monday 4/6 @ 9 a.m. GMT, and Tuesday 4/7 @ 9 p.m. GMT.

And for Korea, Sydney and Manila:

Saturday 4/4 @ 9 a.m. GMT,

Sunday 4/5 @ 10 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. GMT,

Monday 4/6 @ 9 a.m. GMT,

Tuesday 4/7 @ 9 p.m. GMT

The painting used in our animations is Mount St Michael, Cornwall (1830) by Clarkson Stanfield

And if you enjoy our shows, please subscribe to our newsletter @ talesfromthepennybloods.org - and share!

Carnacki, Hargreaves, Miss Sargent and the inimitable Mr Tibbs team up to uncover the secrets, the mystery, and otherworldly weirdness in ‘The Mystery of Horner’s Court.’

“Thrills, spills, and Mrs Stokes’ meringues in our latest auricular adventure!”

The original stories were Allen Upward’s ‘The Secret of Horner’s Court’ and William Hope Hodgson’s ‘The Searcher of the End House’, with overlapping themes; when Hargreaves is called upon to investigate the haunting of Horner’s Court, he hears of a phantom child running about, and there are rumours of its ghostly mother by the pool. On his return to London, he finds an invitation to Carnacki’s for dinner and a story, which also tells of a phantom woman and child.

Is there a prankster at play?

After telling his story, Carnacki joins Hargreaves in the further investigation of Horner’s Corner, together with the indefatigable Miss Sargent and Mr Tibbs the cat.

George Allen Upward was a poet, novelist, playwright, barrister, defender of nationalist causes and, for a short time, a publisher.

His works range from philosophical to speculative , from political and visionary to the supernatural and science-fiction; he rubbed shoulders with the likes of Bernard Shaw, Jerome K.Jerome, and W.B.Yeats and he exchanged letters with such as Augustus John, Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain, and Lloyd George. His short story series ‘The Ghost Hunters’, ran in the Royal Magazine in 1905, introducing Hargreaves and Miss Sargent as rather unusual ghost detectives: a house agent and a sleep-walking ‘sensitive’, or medium and can be heard in our earlier episodes ‘The Green House’ and ‘The Tapping on the Wainscot’.

Detail of illustration from the original ‘The Secret of Horner’s Court’ in the Royal Magazine, 1905.

In the series adapted for the Penny Bloods, the team is joined by William Hopeson Hodge’s Carnacki, and Mr Tibbs the cat. The Carnacki stories appeared only a few years after Upwards’ Ghost Hunters in 1910, and two years after Algernon Blackwood’s John Silence in 1908. Surely Mr Silence shall join the team at some point, you ask? We shall see; if he is not too eccentric, nor too fastidious (and if he does not flirt too much with Miss Sargent) we may invite him on one of our next adventures.

Illustration from the original series in the Royal Magazine.

Meanwhile, we have drawn up our eyewitness statements (Mrs Stokes: ‘All overcome I am ….it raised its arms.. And…BOO!’), and assembled our cast; the Mystery of Horner’s Court can be heard on KCBP Radio (kcbpradio.org) this weekend, after which it will find its home on our channels.

Subscribe now

We ended December 2024 with two spooky comedies; both adapted into pretty raucous audio plays. The first, a maritime comedy, comes from Edward Howard’s 1837 story in Bentley’s Miscellany entitled “‘Who Milked My Cow?’ Or, The Marine Ghost.” It tells the tale of a milk-loving sea captain, his bodacious bovine, and his credulous crew. Trouble brews as some seamen wreak havoc in his shipboard dairy. Adapted as The Haunted Cow by Arnold Anthony Schmidt, this episode introduces two of the world’s most famous female pirates, Mary Bonny and Ann Read, and enhances the comedy by bringing on board a genuine ghost to keep everyone company.

The Haunted Cow features Carl Bengston, Summur Brailey, River Hawk, Falina Van Lewen, Steve Van Lewen, Dean Medek, Tim Shaw, and Julia Warren. Engineered and edited by Raymond Mahnke, it features original music composed and performed by River Hawk.

In keeping with the holiday spirit, we closed 2024 with a Penny Blood version of Oscar Wilde’s classic short story “The Canterville Ghost.” This episode, updated to introduce the title character to the world of the internet and virtual reality, adds music and enhances the comedy of Wilde’s redemptive tale.

Arnold Anthony Schmidt wrote the script for The Canterville Ghost Revisited, whose cast includes Carl Bengston, Hayley Carpenter, River Hawk, Falina van Lewen, Dean Medek, Kate Olenski, Tim Shaw, and Julia Warren. And our youngsters, Eliana Van Lewen and Adella Vaisau. Raymond Mahnke engineered.

As 2025 began, we rang in the new year with a trio of mummy-themed shows. First up, Julia Warren adapted and directed “Lot 249” by Arthur Conan Doyle, a favourite of hers from his supernatural canon. “Lot 249” was first published in Harper’s Magazine in 1892, a year after Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes in “The Final Problem”, and is set at a college in Oxford. There, Abercrombie Smith, a student of medicine, observes some strange incidents surrounding his neighbor, Egyptology student Edward Bellingham. The cast had enormous fun doing the show, especially the special vocal effects!

Our cast came from both sides of the Pond: Carl Bengston, Jonathan Brandt, William Foreman, Simon Gibbons, River Hawk, Camden van Lewen, Clive Marlowe, and David Spragg. Julia Warren also edited and engineered the audio.

You can also listen to David Spragg on his channel the Aural Library channel (@theaurallibrary). And Jonathan Brandt can also be heard on his Youtube channel “The Grammopod Show” at Théâtrophone Studios (@jonathanbrandt3716).

We followed this high-spirited romp with the second of our Mummy trilogy: The Mummy; or, the Elixir of Life. Our comedy follows the travails of an intrepid young woman, her father who collects antiquities, and her two suitors who attempt to bribe him with one special Egyptian artefact in particular! Will father get his mummy? Will true love triumph in the end? And who is that strange woman hiding in the sarcophagus?

Joining us for The Mummy; Or, The Elixir of Life were Michael Cogan, Jason Greenwood, Kait Feeney, Steff Knappe, John Martin, Carter McQueen, and Sarah Jane Wing. River Hawk composed and performed the music. Raymond Mahnke engineered and mixed the show. Arnold Anthony Schmidt wrote this episode, based on an 1833 play by William Bayle Bernard. Julia Warren directed.

The finale of our “mummy” series, our most ambitious project to date, came next: Arnold Anthony Schmidt and Julia Warren adapted and directed The Jewel of the Seven Stars, based on the full-length novel by Bram Stoker of Dracula fame.

The three-hour drama recounts the adventures of an Egyptologist and his explorations in the Middle East, as well as the romance between the professor’s daughter and a prominent attorney. Aided by a skeptical physician and a daring detective, the supernatural drama culminates in a breathtaking – dare I name it, explosive – climax.

The Jewel of the Seven Stars featured our largest cast yet: Frida Alba, Lucy Archer-Woodcock, Chris Barry, Carl Bengston, Jonathan Brandt, Michael Cogan, Gregory Dwyer, Jason Greenwood, Clive Marlowe, John Martin, and Carter McQueen. Julia Warren edited and engineered.

After a summer break, we entered autumn with a pair of tales by Amelia B. Edwards: “The Phantom Coach” and “The New Pass,” nested together in Julia Warren’s adaptation. In Wayfarers All, a lost traveler walking across snowy moors in the 1860s encounters a scholarly hermit, who tells him a tale of ghostly warnings in the sunny Alps. A newly engineered tunnel, a mysterious coach, and a spectral stranger drive the story along, as the episode closes with one last inexplicable encounter with the supernatural.

Wayfarers All features Michael Cogan, Clive Marlowe, John Martin, Carter McQueen, Dean Medek, Kate Olenski, David Spragg, and Mark Tunstall. Julia Warren directed and engineered.

As we celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of another, we heartily thank the fantastic actors, multi-talented engineers, and imaginative musicians who contributed to carrying these stories from the page to the stage and bringing them to life for us all.

Special thanks, as always, to James Costello, general manager of Modesto’s KCBP-FM, for his energetic support over these several years now.

On behalf of us all at the Penny Blood Players, here’s wishing you an inspired, productive, and happy 2026. We hope you have had as much fun listening to these episodes as we’ve had creating then. And we look forward to bringing you lots of laughs and excitement in the coming year. Cheers!

In California’s Central Valley, Denair’s Gaslight Theater presented two Victorian texts, both adapted by Arnold Anthony Schmidt. The evening opened with The Haunted Cow, drawn from Edward Howard’s 1837 story “’Who Milked My Cow?’ Or, The Marine Ghost.” Directed by James Perry, it tells the uproarious story of a milk-loving pirate and his outlandish crew. Cue the mayhem as a mysterious sea creature haunts the captain’s beloved bovine! A group of talented actors delighted the audience with romance, comedy, and, of course, lots of spooky stuff too.

Next came the Penny Blood’s interpretation of William Bayle Bernard’s farce The Mummy, or the Elixir of Life, which premiered at London’s Adelphi Theatre in 1833. The comedy follows a curmudgeonly antiquarian yearning for a mummy. Two suitors for his “New Woman” daughter tempt him with their mummies, and things go awry when one of the mummies comes to life (sort of)! The show benefitted from a life-size mummy costume, cast from the body of the director’s partner!

The cast included Daniel Ascensao, Norene Austin, Shelby Baker, Carl Bengston, Summur Braley, Haley Carpenter, Samuel Robinson Kruem, Adam Lincoln Lane, Shannon Robertson and Kirk Sorensen.

Extensive video projections and sound effects by Raymond Mehnke, and River Hawk’s original music – now nautical, now Middle Eastern – heightened the shows’ emotional impact. Anthony Edwards facilitated the evening of fun, generously supported by the Valley Repertory Theater.

Also at the Gaslight, director Traci Sprague brought to life one of Jane Austen’s little-known works, written when she was just a teenager. Years ago, CSU Stanislaus professor Schmidt taught a graduate seminar on Jane Austen and came across a story she wrote when about 15 years old, “Love and Freindship” (her spelling 😊). Though most of Austen’s oeuvre has appeared on stage and screen, this story has until now escaped notice, providing inspiration for this full-length comedy.

Schmidt’s adaptation, entitled Jane Austen in West Hollywood, follows the trials and travails of an L.A. theatre troupe rehearse “their” version of Austen’s story. Its raucous tone and “play within a play” structure owe a debt to Michael Frayn’s Noises Off, as Austen’s adapted story echoes the shenanigans of the frame narrative, following young love, faltering marriage, tricky parenting, and adult growing pains.

The cast featured Haley Carpenter, Adam Lincoln Lane, Daniel Medina, Rigel Smart, Lorelei Starling Sprague, and Sierrah Stepps. Of special note, stage armorer Ambrose Mac worked to coordinate the sword play, helping to make the fight scene realistic -- and safe! The show rehearsed at venues provided by “Guardian Angel” Shannon Stevens and the CSU Stanislaus Theatre department. Anthony Edwards and the Valley Repertory Theater also provided substantial support for this production.

Adding to the fun, students and faculty from CSU Stanislaus Creative Media worked together to create a “behind the scenes” documentary about Jane Austen in West Hollywood. Shot during rehearsals and performances, and including interviews with cast and audience members, The Heart of Theatre was produced by Shannon V. Stevens and Jessica Gomula-Kruzic, and directed by Trevelyn Blazzard, Esmeralda Jimenez Casillas, and Bee Mendoza Ochoa. The film crew included Maile Arnold, Angela Azevedo, Gabriella Buenrosto, Esmeralda Braydon Johnson, Marina Leyva, Jonathan Peralta, Anthony Reyes, Kyara Rodriguez, Ronin Rodriguez, Felipe Rodriguez Santillan, James Simon, Brooke Thomas, Anay Venegas, and Taliyah Xayarath. The documentary premiered on campus earlier this month and is currently being readied for submission to various film festivals.

That makes for a busy year, but that’s not all! On the other side of the pond, the Penny Blood Players found opportunities to keep busy as well. On Halloween evening, two thrilling comedies directed by Julia Warren used projections and sound effects to entertain audiences at London’s Omnibus Theatre. That program included The Mummy, the heroine now attired in a beautiful Egyptian cape, coupled with Warren’s adaptation of an Alan Upward’s story. “The Green House” follows a pair of real estate agents who specialize in haunted houses, as well as a colleague who has second sight when asleep. A drunken ghost, not to mention a murder, complete the tale, presented by a group of tremendously talented actors that included Jonathan Brandt, Kait Feeney, Jason Greenwood, Steff Knappe, John Martin, and Lucy Archer-Woodcock.

Of special note, the Omnibus show boasted live Foley, as the cast created “real” sound effects during the show. In particular, Kait and Steff used coconuts, whistles, bells, and other items to create footsteps and doors, horses and trains. The other actors joined in to create ghostly howls and street crowds, adding a special spontaneity with these extemporaneous sound effects. The show also featured projections and a beautiful mummy cape. Extra special thanks to Omnibus Artistic Director Marie McCarthy, Project Coordinator Hannah Petch, and Lighting/Sound Engineer MacDeath, who together made this delightful evening possible.

We hope you have enjoyed our Penny Blood adventures as much as we have, and urge you to stay with us for the coming year. We have LOTS of fun in store, both online and on stage! If you’re not already subscribed, please sign up to our newsletter at talesfromthepennybloods.org and Substack (substack.com/publish/posts/published). New to our podcast? You can catch up on past episodes – or listen again to your favorites – on Spotify

and YouTube ( https://www.youtube.com/@thepennybloodspodcast ). With questions, comments, suggestions, you can email us @ PennyBloodTales@proton.com. We love hearing from our listeners.

The first ‘curiosity’, then, is the thoroughfare Christina was born in : Charlotte Street. Named after George III’s wife and royal consort, it was formed in 1763, the year Christina’s grandpapa Polidori was born, and barely seventy years before Christina’s own birth. Its houses were (and still are) in the typical Georgian style, neat and tidy, with tall narrow windows, and drew many well-off residents, from home and abroad. Charlotte Street and much of the surrounding area of St Pancras, including King’s Cross and Camden Town, became home to a burgeoning German community during the 19th century, with Charlotte Street at the heart of it, garnering the nickname ‘Charlottenstrasse’ into the bargain. Bakers, bankers, waiters, nurses, governesses - the Rossettis might have their buns delivered from Engel’s or Schmidt’s, and had they invested in a governess, she might easily have gone by the name of Miss Kobel or Schroder or Brandt.

Aside from its Teutonic elements, Charlotte Street also seems to have been a magnet for artists: in 1830, when Christina was born at number 38, Mr John Constable (he of Hay Wain fame) was the Rossetti’s near neighbour at nr 35; while the Highland actor-painter McLan lived at number 36. Other artists included Morland and Violet, and it was also home to Sass’s Academy, where William Powell Frith, Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Thackeray studied.

When Christina was six, the Rossetti’s moved up the road to number 50.

According to her brother William Michael Rossetti, Chrisitna could compose poetry before she could write, dictating her first verse to her mother.

By the time she was thirteen, the Rossetti children were creating their own family newspaper, “The Hodge-Podge or Weekly Efforts,” (1843), followed later by a periodical called “The Illustrated Scrapbook.” Christina’s early poetic efforts were experimental, as she tried out balladic, pastoral and lyrical forms, and tried out the style of celebrated poets like Tennyson.

Once I rambled in a wood

With a careless hardihood,

Heeding not the tangled way;

Labyrinths around me lay,

But for them I never stood.

From ‘The Dead City’, 1847

By the time Christina was seventeen, she had already written enough verse to make a collection, entitled simply ‘Verses’, and privately printed by her grandfather Gaetano Polidori in 1847 - for he had a printing press at his home. Much later on, her brother William’s children would be printing their own, more political, literature with ‘The Torch’ (in 1891).

Grandfather Polidori meanwhile, delighted with Christina’s efforts, encouraged her with this first collection. It opened with ‘The Dead City’, which describes the traveller’s journey through a forest to an empty city where a sumptuous banquet is laid out in a forsaken palace. Echoing Coleridge’s Kubla Khan in its dreamy vision, and quite possibly inspired by Tales of Arabian Nights, it builds up on gothic romanticism, inspired by Shelley, Keats and Tennyson among others.

‘Probably she was Dante Gabriel’s first model, and there is a portrait of her by him, executed in 1848, when she was seventeen. It used to hang in the back parlour at 30 Torrington Square, formerly her sitting room. It is described by Mr. W. M. Rossetti as “the very first finished painting” Dante Gabriel produced. Probably her brother executed it as a preliminary study for her portrait in “The Girlhood of Mary Virgin.” It has many qualities of beauty—chief among which is the lovely spiritual expression of the eyes, and the firmness of the mouth, revealing strength as well as sweetness of character.’

From : Christina Rossetti, by MacKenzie Bell, 1898

As in much of her other poetry, Rossetti’s love of nature comes strongly into play, and as she once explained:

“If any one thing schooled me in the direction of poetry, it was perhaps the delightful idle liberty to prowl all alone about my grandfather’s cottage-grounds some thirty miles from London.”

Christina Rossetti, in a letter to Edmund Gosse, 26 March 1884

Despite growing up in a city, the Rossetti children lived near Regent’s Park and the recently opened Zoological Gardens, which became a regular excursion for them. In addition to their own pets (cat, birds, squirrel) they had favourites among the curious creatures at the Zoo, including : parrots, armadillos and sloths. (Later, Dante Gabriel would keep a couple of wombats, alongside owls, armadillos, rabbits, peacocks, kangaroos and wallabies in his menagerie at Cheyne Walk).

From : Christina Rossetti, by MacKenzie Bell, 1898

Added to this, there were summer trips to the countryside, away from the sights and sounds of the city:

‘Among the great pleasures of Christina’s early childhood were her visits to the cottage of her grandfather, Gaetano Polidori, at Holmer Green, near Little Missenden in Buckinghamshire. This cottage was about thirty miles from London, and in those days could only be reached by a stage coach journey of six hours’ duration. The novelty of this journey to the town-bred and town-immured little girl may be imagined, more especially as surrounding the cottage was a garden, small in actual extent, but large in her idea. To her this garden was a revelation of the beauty of nature, and she spoke to me frequently respecting the exquisite delight she had derived from her rambles in it— a delight which came to an end before she was nine years old.’ (Bell, 1898)

The visits to the countryside came to an end because her grandparents sold up the cottage and moved to London. The rich visuals in ‘The Dead City’ bear witness to her childhood experiences, while also foreshadowing later works such as ‘The Goblin Market’ and her book of nursery rhymes ‘Sing Song’:

The countryside beckoned once more in 1853 when Christina and her parents moved to Somerset to open a school, but the venture proved unsuccessful and they were back in London within a year. Regent’s Park meanwhile had lost none of its attraction:

‘We have revisited the Z. Gardens. Lizards are in strong force, tortoises active, alligators looking up. The weasel-headed armadillo as usual evaded us. A tree-frog came to light, the exact image of a tin toy to follow a magnet in a slop-basin. The blind wombat and neighbouring porcupine broke forth into short-lived hostilities, but apparently without permanent results. The young puma begins to bite. Your glorious sea-anemones : —I well know the strawberry specimen, but do not remember the green and purple.’

From a letter to her brother William, August,1858.

“She is the finest woman-poet since Mrs. Browning, by a long way; and in artless art, if not in intellectual impulse, is greatly Mrs. Browning’s superior.” (Dante Gabriel Rossetti)

While Rossetti spent much of her life in London, there were visits to Brighton, Mansfield, Longleat, and other places, she did also occasionally visit France and Italy, as described by Mackenzie Bell :

‘It is true that according to our modern notions Christina Rossetti had not much foreign travel. Yet she was not wholly without this experience ; its influence has left abiding traces on her writings; and, even in her poetry, once and again she described aspects of Nature not to be seen in England. Although the opportunity for travel possessed by her brother William was necessarily limited to an annual summer vacation, owing to his professional duties at Somerset House; yet on two occasions he travelled with Christina on the Continent of Europe. In 1861 he took his mother and herself to Paris and Normandy, returning by Jersey, the sojourn abroad occupying about six weeks.

‘Her second and most important tour, though only filling the same space of time, occurred in 1865. ‘With the same companions she then proceeded through France and by Basle, the Lake of Lucerne, and the St. Gotthard to Italy. The party visited Como, Pavia, Brescia, Bergamo, and Milan, taking on their way northwards the Splügen, Schaffhausen, Freiburg in the Black Forest, and Strasburg. Mountain scenery delighted Christina inexpressibly; pictures, and such matters of fine art appealed to her much less. There is a most interesting hint as to her feelings in Switzerland in ‘Time Flies,’ under date June l0. She there speaks of what she aptly calls the ‘saddening influence of mountain scenery.’ For this she does not seek to assign a definite cause, suggesting, however, that because the ‘mass and loftiness’ of high mountains far exceed the ‘physical magnitudes’ —magnitudes mainly of sea and sky—to which our eyes arc accustomed, therefore ‘their sublimity impresses us like want of sympathy.’ (Bell,1898)

Christina Rossetti, Sonnet XXII of ‘Later Life’, 1881

And our final little curiosity associates Christina with the British Museum - more particularly, the Reading Room. This was a popular place of study for men and women, and Christina made good use of the Reading Room, where she went to study and conduct research, in particular between 1876 and the early 1880, when she was preparing ground for a biography of Mrs Radcliffe. However, the lack of material made her decide against pursuing the project and in September of 1883 she wrote to the editor John H. Ingram relinquishing the task:

‘I have done my best to collect Radcliffe material and have failed. Some one else, I daresay, will gladly attempt the memoir, but I despair and withdraw. Pray pardon me for having kept you so long in suspense. . . .

Apologising for all that has been disappointment in my doings and not-doings,

I remain, etc. etc.’

Meanwhile other projects beckoned, such as ‘Time Flies - A Reading Diary’, with prose or poetry for each day of the year. This was published in 1885 by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. By now Christina was living in Torrington Square, and there I think we may leave her, with her pet cat Muff at her feet, writing poetry and letters, making scrapbooks, in gentle conversation with visitors, or gazing out of the window in quiet contemplation of life, the world and everything in it.

From ‘In the Willow Shade’ by Christina Rossetti, 1881

References and further reading:

The Family Letters of Christina Georgina Rossetti, ed. William Michael Rossetti, 1908.

Christina Rossetti - A Biographical and Critical Study, Mackenzie Bell, 1898, Thomas Burleigh.

Christina Rossetti, Dorothy Margaret Stuart, 1930, Macmillan.

Christina Rossetti, Bellas, Ralph A, 1977, G.K. Hall

Christina Rossetti: A Portrait with Background, Marya Zaturenska, 1949, Macmillan

Christina Rossetti, a divided life, Battiscombe, Georgina, 1981, Holt, Rinehart and Winston

An entertaining article on Rossetti’s wombat and other animals:

https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/o-uommibatto-how-the-pre-raphaelites-became-obsessed-with-the-wombat/

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