LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Dime Novels: Authors
built 646 days ago
Often, characters appearing in dime-novel series were better known than their authors were. Ned Buntline's famous western hero, Buffalo Bill, based on United States scout and performer William Frederick Cody, appeared in numerous publications by Beadle & Adams, Street & Smith, and Frank Tousey. Amateur detective Nick Carter proved to be so popular after his first appearance in The Old Detective's Pupil (1886), that Street & Smith featured his adventures in three different series between 1891 and 1915, The Nick Carter Library, The New Nick Carter Weekly, and Nick Carter Stories. Similarly, the exploits of Deadwood Dick, Kit Carson, Jr., Jesse James, Old Sleuth, Young Wild West, Frank Reade, Jr., Tiger Dick, and Frank Merriwell appeared in more than one dime novel.
Source:
It should be noted that, to avoid confusion, one usually speaks of the publishers of dime novels more often than one speaks of the authors. This is because authorship is often uncertain. Multiple authors using a single pseudonym wrote many of the titles in a series. Alternately, a single author might ... employ different names for different titles or series.
Source:
"Taking it all in all the business of writing dime novels has reached a comparatively high plane. The modern author doesn't retire to a garret with a quart of whiskey when he starts out on a story. Instead, he lives with his family in some Jersey village, comes to New York every day, plugs out about 6,000 words and then, goes back home and takes things easy.
Source:
Nick Carter was not the only dime novel hero who was heroic in so many different ways that he could be carried through hundreds of stories, year after year. Since all the central characters were stereotypes, there was really no reason for changing their names, anyway. The one essential was to change the setting. Before drawing up a contract with Gilbert Patten for the Frank Merriwell stories, his publisher specified that Frank must travel. Upon finishing school he must come into sufficient money to escape the monotony of even the most exalted of professions, and be left free to pursue his hobby of rescuing young ladies in all parts of the world. Both he and his author lasted out some 900 of these stories.
Source:
The dime-novel frontier woman displayed various degrees of purity; the majority of primary women characters possess this attribute, and there is no doubt that it is a greatly admired trait in fictional as well as actual women. Purity in the context of the dime novel goes beyond its basic definition of freedom from moral faults to an interpretation of perfect, unspoiled innocence. The author was careful to establish the appropriate purity of the women in the story through indirect as well as direct means. The most popular indirect technique was the emphasis on the character's natural surroundings. The corruption of the city could not touch a woman who lived on the prairie, and detailed descriptions of the countryside are included in the frontier novel. The city woman when she appeared was at best a little thoughtless and at worst scheming and selfish.
Source:
The deterioration of the "dime" novel may be said to have begun in the early 1880's, and they degenerated rapidly after the introduction of detective, gamin, and bootblack stories. The first Beadle detective story was written by Albert Aiken as a serial for the Saturday Journal and began June 10, 1871, in No. 65. Another by the same author began in No. 119, June 22, 1872, and one by Anthony P. Morris in No. 143, December 7, 1872. There was another by Aiken in No. 167, May 24, 1873, after which none appeared until December 30, 1876, when one by Charles Morris began in No. 355. There were three in 1877, and one in 1878. The next year they appeared in both the Saturday Journal and the Half-Dime Library.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Authors