Penny Dreadful is a British-American horror drama television series created and written by John Logan, who serves as executive producer alongside Sam Mendes. The title refers to the penny dreadfuls, a type of 19th-century cheap British fiction publication with lurid and sensational subject matter. The series premiered on Showtime on May 11, 2014.[1] After the third-season finale on June 19, 2016, series creator John Logan announced that Penny Dreadful had ended.[2]
The series draws upon many public domain characters from 19th-century British and Irish fiction, including Dorian Gray from Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray; Mina Harker, Abraham Van Helsing, Dr. Seward, Renfield, and Count Dracula from Bram Stoker's Dracula; Victor Frankenstein and his creature from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; and Dr. Henry Jekyll from Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.