The Penny Dreadfuls MEGAPACK™
Oscar Wilde
Contents
COPYRIGHT INFO
A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER
The MEGAPACK™ Ebook Series
FRANKENSTEIN, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
DRACULA, by Bram Stoker
VARNEY, THE VAMPIRE, by Thomas Preskett Prest
THE WERE-WOLF, by Clemence Housman
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, by Oscar Wilde
THE MONK, by Matthew Lewis
THE STRING OF PEARLS, by Thomas Peckett Prest
THE RING OF THOTH, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, by Robert Louis Stevenson
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, by Edgar Allan Poe
COPYRIGHT INFO
The Penny Dreadfuls MEGAPACK™ is copyright © 2015 by Wildside Press, LLC. All rights reserved.
* * * *
The MEGAPACK™ ebook series name is a trademark of Wildside Press, LLC. All rights reserved.
A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER
“Penny Dreadfuls” (also called penny horribles, penny awfuls, penny numbers, and penny bloods) were a type of British publication in the 19th century that usually featured lurid serial stories appearing in parts over a number of weeks, each part costing one penny. The term, however, soon came to encompass a variety of publications that featured cheap sensational fiction, such as story papers and booklet “libraries”. The penny dreadfuls were printed on cheap pulp paper and were aimed at young working class males.
Two of the most famous Penny Dreadfuls were Varney the Vampire (which popularized vampires) and The String of Pearls (Sweeney Todd), both of which are included here, alongside other works which share the same gothic horror traditions: Frankenstein, by Mary W. Shelley; Dracula, by Bram Stoker; The Portrait of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde; The Were-Wolf, by Clemence Housman; and a number of others.
Enjoy!
—John Betancourt
Publisher, Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidepress.com
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The MEGAPACK™ ebook series (except where specifically credited) are a group effort. Everyone at Wildside works on them. This includes John Betancourt (me), Carla Coupe, Steve Coupe, Shawn Garrett, Helen McGee, Bonner Menking, Colin Azariah-Kribbs, A.E. Warren, and many of Wildside’s authors…who often suggest stories to include (and not just their own!)
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FRANKENSTEIN, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
or the Modern Prometheus
Letter 1
St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17—
To Mrs. Saville, England
You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. I arrived here yesterday, and my first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare and increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking.
I am already far north of London, and as I walk in the streets of Petersburgh, I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves and fills me with delight. Do you understand this feeling? This breeze, which has travelled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is forever visible, its broad disk just skirting the horizon and diffusing a perpetual splendour. There—for with your leave, my sister, I will put some trust in preceding navigators—there snow and frost are banished; and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe. Its productions and features may be without example, as the phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those undiscovered solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal light? I may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle and may regulate a thousand celestial observations that require only this voyage to render their seeming eccentricities consistent forever. I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man. These are my enticements, and they are sufficient to conquer all fear of danger or death and to induce me to commence this laborious voyage with the joy a child feels when he embarks in a little boat, with his holiday mates, on an expedition of discovery up his native river. But supposing all these conjectures to be false, you cannot contest the inestimable benefit which I shall confer on all mankind, to the last generation, by discovering a passage near the pole to those countries, to reach which at present so many months are requisite; or by ascertaining the secret of the magnet, which, if at all possible, can only be effected by an undertaking such as mine.
