Penny Black Penny Black The Penny Black was the world's first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system. It was first issued in Great Britain on 1 May 1840, but was not valid for use until 6 May. It features a profile of Queen Victoria. In 1837, British postal rates were high, complex and anomalous. To simplify matters, Sir Rowland Hill proposed an adhesive stamp to indicate pre-payment of postage. At the time it was normal for the recipient to pay postage on delivery, charged by the sheet and on distance travelled. By contrast, the Penny Black allowed letters of
Penny dreadful of value, and such hazards as war-time paper drives, the penny dreadfuls, particularly the earliest ones, are fairly rare today. Some items that have been named after this topic include a song called "Penny Dreadfuls" by Animal Collective, the Irish literary magazine "The Penny Dreadful" and a Showtime horror television series set in Victorian England titled "Penny Dreadful". Sources Penny dreadful Penny dreadfuls were cheap popular serial literature produced during the nineteenth century in the United Kingdom. The pejorative term is roughly interchangeable with penny horrible, penny awful, and penny blood. The term typically referred to a story published in