Strange Victoriana

This is the 55th and final instalment of Strange and Sensational Stories from the Illustrated

Police News after nearly six years, but you will find much more to read in Jan Bondeson's book

Strange Victoriana (Amberley Publishing, Stroud 2016), which collects both the stories that have appeared in FT and an equal number of previously unpublished tales from "the worst newspaper in the world". Dog-Faced Men are exhibited on stage, doctors congregate around the bed of the Sleeping Frenchman of Soho, Miss Vint demonstrates her Reincarnated Cats, and scantily dressed Female Somnambulists tumble from the roofs. From the spectral world, we have the Haunted Murder House near Chard, the Ghost of Berkeley Square, the Jumping Spectre of Peckham and the Fighting Ghost of Tondu. The White Gorilla takes a swig from its tankard of beer, eagles come swooping from the sky to carry off little children, heroic Newfoundland dogs plunge into the waves to rescue drowning mariners, and the Rat-Killing Monkey of Manchester goes on a rampage in the rat-pit, swinging a hammer...