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. After the third-season finale on June 19, 2016, series creator John Logan announced that Penny Dreadful had ended. During the course of the series, 27 episodes of Penny Dreadful aired over three seasons.

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.