Penny Dreadful - Werewolf

The Penny Dreadful was a 19th-century publishing phenomenon. These cheap, sensational, highly illustrated stories were very popular with the Victorian public.

 

In the 1830s, increasing literacy and improving technology saw a boom in cheap fiction for the working classes. ‘Penny bloods’ was the original name for the booklets that, in the 1860s, were renamed Penny Dreadfuls and told stories of adventure, initially of pirates and highwaymen, later concentrating on crime and detection.

Penny Dreadfuls were issued weekly, each ‘number’, or episode, was eight (occasionally 16) pages, with a black-and-white illustration on the top half of the front page. Double columns of text filled the rest, breaking off at the bottom of the final page, even if it was the middle of a sentence.

The bloods were astonishingly successful, creating a vast new readership. Between 1830 and 1850 there were up to 100 publishers of penny-fiction, as well as the many magazines which now wholeheartedly embraced the genre. 

There is some THING within us all.

Penny Dreadful the Showtime show is a powerfully written saga filled with dark mystery and suspense. It lives in a demimonde — a half world between reality and the supernatural — where personal demons from the past can be stronger than vampires, evil spirits and immortal beasts.

Some of literature's most terrifying figures, including Dr. Frankenstein and his Creature, Dorian Gray, and iconic figures from the novel Dracula are lurking in the darkest corners of the city. They are joined by a core of original characters in a new narrative filled with alienation and dread.

Werewolf

Werewolves (also called Lupus Dei) are humans who undergo a transformation into savage, wolf-like beasts on the night of the full moon.

When transformed, werewolves are strong and ferocious predators.  Werewolves do not appear able to force a transformation outside of full moon, nor do they seem to possess any control their savage nature once transformed.

The transformation itself is not severe; they remain essentially humanoid in appearance, but of larger stature and with wolf-like eyes, ears, claws and fangs. The transformation can be fought but it can not be prevented from occurring. 

When transformed, werewolves are seemingly mindless predators and will prey on animals and humans for food. Remains found at the scenes of these killings have been severely mutilated, with limbs having been dismembered.

"Even a man who's pure of heart, and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms, and the moon is full and bright."