Tristan Robert Lange

Poet | Mystic | Existential Voice | Human with a haunted halo

Tristan Robert Lange is a poet whose work blends existential depth, gothic imagery, and spiritual subtext. This site is home to their published poems, reflections, and creative journey.

Devilishly Dreadful

Vintage woodcut-style cover image for the Devilishly Dreadful series. A gothic castle rises on a hill beneath swirling, storm-like skies. A single old-fashioned streetlamp glows in the foreground. The title “DEVILISHLY DREADFUL” appears in bold serif lettering, with the subtitle “A Macabre Monday Series.” The palette is sepia and black with subtle red accents, evoking a 19th-century penny dreadful aesthetic.
Image: AI-generated using DALL-E and modified by the author; Series and poetry: written by Tristan Robert Lange, human-authored.

Introduction

Devilishly Dreadful is an ongoing poetry series inspired by the Victorian penny dreadfuls of the 19th century—cheap, sensational publications that reveled in crime, horror, scandal, and the collapse of moral certainty.

This series does not retell those stories.

It reimagines them.

Each installment draws from a specific historical penny dreadful or Gothic legend and rebuilds it through contemporary poetic forms, original structures, and modern moral interrogation. Faith curdles. Institutions fail. Witnesses speak too late. Monsters aren’t only supernatural—and when they are, they wear human masks.

Across the series, dread emerges not through spectacle alone, but through systems: religion, empire, class, patriarchy, nationalism, and the bureaucracies that protect violence by calling it order.

The Series

Season 1

  1. Resting Place
    (Inspired by The String of Pearls (1846), the Sweeney Todd penny dreadful)
  2. Unholy Loopholes
    (Inspired by The Black Monk; or, The Secret of the Grey Turret (1840s))
  3. Vesuvian Vampire
    (Inspired by Varney the Vampire; or, The Feast of Blood (1845–1847))
  4. God Save the Jack
    (Inspired by the legend of Spring-Heeled Jack and the Jane Alsop account)
  5. The Flames of Betrayal
    (Inspired by Ada the Betrayed; or, The Murder at the Old Smithy (1840s))
  6. Secrets Gallop
    (Inspired by The Skeleton Horseman (1841–1842))
  7. The Undying Count
    (Inspired by The Count of Villeroy; or, The Mesmerist’s Victims (1840s))
  8. The Croaker
    (An original Devilishly Dreadful by Tristan Robert Lange)
  9. The Undying Count: Feast of the Brethren
    A Devilishly Dreadful Christmas Eve Special
  10. Varney the Vampire, or the First Watch (Coming Soon)
    A Devilishly Dreadful Watch Night Special

FORM & APPROACH

No single poetic form governs Devilishly Dreadful.
Each piece earns its structure.

Traditional forms—ballade, sestina, ghazal—sit alongside original forms developed by the author. In many cases, the poem’s structure carries as much meaning as its narrative, allowing voice, rhythm, and documentation to do the work of horror.

Documents become testimony.
Testimony becomes indictment.

© 2025 Tristan Robert Lange. All rights reserved.

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