The following passage comes from an extraordinary and little known 'penny dreadful' written in the 18405. It is a fairly early example of serial writing, bound together from weekly parts of the Penny Magazine. I was lucky enough to acquire this worm-eaten volume at a jumble sale for the princely sum of one penny. The style is a bit like Harrison Ainsworth and Eugene Sue trying to write porn. Although the work is over-long and over-packed with incident, in its attempts to vilify the royal family, especially the Prince Regent, it has some merit. Interestingly, The Mysteries of the Court of London contains one of the earliest attempts to describe a psychopath - a character who may well have been the forerunner of Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde. The depiction of London poverty and child thieves is likely also to have influenced Dickens's Oliver Tivist.

The Prince Regent
 

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to resist you,' said the Amazon; - and rising from her seat on the bed, she proceeded to divest herself of the apparel which became her symmetrical form so admirably.

Then, as the Prince beheld the superb bosom released from its prisonage in the closely fitting frock-coat, and appearing dazzlingly white in the lustre which filled the room, - and as his looks gloated upon the plump and sloping shoulders on which the ebon hair fell in massive tresses, - while the robust but snowy arms, now naked to about midway above the elbow, were curved gracefully behind her back as the taper fingers unloosened the fastening of the corset, - his Royal Highness regretted not that the beauteous wanton had intruded at this unseemly hour into the privacy of his chamber.

But ere she completely finished the task of undressing herself, the Amazon - as if inspired with a certain instinctive feeling of modesty, despite the position in which she was now placed - drew the rich curtain of the bed to conceal her form from the Prince: but this she did in such a manner that the night-table, whereon the soda-water and spirits stood, was left outside the drapery, and also hidden therefore from the view of the heir-apparent. Then, having accomplished this little manoeuvre, the Amazon took a small phial from the pocket of her breeches and poured a few drops of its dark-coloured contents into the tumbler whence the Prince had already drunk the brandy, as just now stated.

In another minute the Amazon entered the royal couch and was clasped in the impassioned embrace of the fervid voluptuary.
 

An hour afterwards Lady Letitia Lade rose gently from the magnificent bed, and began to resume her apparel with all possible despatch.

Glancing towards the Prince, who was sleeping a profound lethargic slumber, she murmured to herself, 'The cold-blooded villain! Oh! that I was compelled to endure his detested embraces - But he imbibed the narcotic in the large dram of brandy which I gave him - and he will not awake for hours to come!'

Then a smile of triumph played on the moist coral lips of the Amazon: and, having finished dressing herself, she drew from beneath the Prince's pillow the golden chain to which was suspended the key of curious workmanship. Therewith opening the desk of his Royal Highness, she proceeded to ransack its contents; and in the course of a few minutes she found the papers for which she was searching.

''Tis as I thought!' she said to herself, again speaking low and murmuringly with her liquid, musical voice. 'The traitor - the false friend! But you shall be avenged, Mengles - you shall be avenged - even if I do not succeed in procuring your restoration to this country!'
Then, locking the desk and replacing the chain with the key under neath the pillow of the Prince, Lady Lade secured the papers about her person and took her departure by the secret staircase.