Hello and welcome to my Victorian nightmare. I'm your host, Genevieve Mannion, and I'm here to talk about mysterious deaths, morbid fascinations, disturbing stories, and otherwise spooky events from the Victorian era. Because to me, there's just something especially intriguing,

creepy, and oddly comforting about horror and mayhem from the 19th century. So, listener discretion

is advised.

Today's episode is a difficult one because I'm talking about children and some very

disturbing realities for children of the 1800s. So I just want to give a specific warning for this

episode. It includes themes related to violence against children and pedophilia. So if you're someone who

finds these topics triggering, please just be aware that they will be discussed.

Today, we're talking about the deeply disturbing world of Victorian children's stories and the

twisted origins of some nursery rhymes at the time

that we still enjoy today. The 1830s to the dawn of the 20th century was a prolific era

for literature, poetry, and songs intended to scare the daylights out of children and adults alike.

Many children's stories are cautionary tales, lessons and

etiquette, some are lessons about right and wrong, some serve little purpose other than to

terrify children into obedience, some appear written by people like desperately trying to understand

their own childhood trauma, and some are just sick musings from clearly disturbed people.

How did these messed up fantasies about tragic deaths, cannibalism, mutilation, sexual violence,

grisly murders, and illicit drug use make their way into children's stories?

The same way all of those things made their way

into every aspect of culture in the Victorian era. Adults and children couldn't get enough of it.

I'm going to talk about the ways Victorian society viewed children and portrayed them in stories.

We'll touch on Penny Dreadfuls, the little books of horror that sold for a penny.

The creepy and real origins of a few of the era's most disturbing nursery rhymes,

...