'The favourite literary pabulum of us boys at school, however, was less classical: "penny bloods" and other Weeklies issued in penny sheets, such as "Sweeny Todd the Barber". Romantic stories of highwaymen circulated freely from boy to boy until reduced to rags: Dick Turpin, Spring-heeled Jack, the gallant Claude Duval, gracefully dancing on the greensward with the ladies he had robbed, Edith the Captive, Edith Heron, with what impatience we awaited the issue of the next number, with what absorbing interest we followed the thrilling adventure!... What it did was to evoke the reading habit, and to one boy at least that was a valuable endowment. Nor did the "Boys of England" proffer a much healthier pabulum to the hunger of the young barbarian for extra-lawful adventure. I can even today visualise the number I read with the lovely alliterate title of its opening story, "Alone in the Pirates' Lair" - and the front page illustration - Jack Harkaway, sitting before the pirate on the island, open-eyed, drinking in the recital of his hazardous deeds;...'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Okey Print: Serial / periodical
'Talking of which, in Heaven's name, get the Bondage of Brandon (3 vols) by Bracebridge Hemming.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
