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Dime Novels: Beadle's Dime Novels
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As Beadle's Dime Novels withered and died, magazine publisher Street and Smith entered the game with their own version of the Dime Novel; indeed, today when people think of the Dime Novel they often mistake Street and Smith's for Beadle's. Unlike Beadle, which had primarily promoted the frontier hero, Street and Smith featured urban-style champions of justice, Pinkerton detectives, private investigator Nick Carter, rags-to-riches Horatio Alger, Jr.
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The original Beadle's Dime Novels were entirely different in appearance from the later productions. They were small, sextodecimo booklets of approximately 100 pages, with clear type and with orange wrappers upon which was printed a stirring woodcut in black. They sold for ten cents. During the early years of publication, the tales gave fairly accurate pictures of the struggles, hardships, and daily lives of the American pioneers. Begun less than half a century after the last war with England, they were intensely nationalistic, and if any stories ever burned with "the spirit of patriotism," it was in these books. For this reason they would doubtless not be popular at the present time with those who regard the United States Constitution as antiquated.
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Dime Novels, inexpensive, sensational fiction published roughly from 1840 to 1900, began as fiction supplements to newspapers, such as Park Benjamin's New World, that could distribute fiction cheaply under the post office's low newspaper rate. Selling for twelve and one-half cents, Benjamin's "shilling novelettes" declined soon after the post office began to apply the higher book rates to fiction supplements in 1843. In 1845 reduced "book rates" revived cheap fiction, which later claimed national as well as local audiences through the distributor American News Company (1864). The most successful publishers of inexpensive literature, Beadle and Adams, released weekly Beadle's Dime Novels beginning in 1860. Competitors included Thomas and Talbot's Ten Cent Novelettes (1863), George Munro's Ten Cent Novels (1864), and Robert DeWitt's Ten Cent Romances (1867). However, dime novels declined in the 1890s due to the panic of 1893; the development of slick, inexpensive magazines; and the copyright agreement of 1891, which curtailed pirating of European fiction.
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Many of the authors who contributed to the original Beadle's dime novels were popular and talented writers, though they certainly are not among the major literary names of the nineteenth century whose fame has survived. Some were frequent contributors to other magazines and had books other than dime novels to their credit. A sum of $75 to $150 was usually paid for a dime novel, though authors whose stories were in great demand could command higher prices for their work. In some cases dime-novel stories were written by persons who had experienced firsthand the frontier adventures they described. Authors of the frontier tales more commonly depended... upon the yarns spun by old storytellers for plots and embellishments. Indian fights and the exploits of hunters and trappers passed on from those who experienced them became the fabric of the dime novel.
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This collection of about 1,400 dime novels was put together by the private collector, Dr. Frank P. O'Brien. He dominated it tot he the Library in 1922. Unfortunately for researchers interested in women's dime novels it is very weak on women's authors, though they do have Beadle's women's series Girls of Today (1875) and Belles and Beaux (1874). Other related collections at the New York Public Library include the travel diaries of Laura Jean Libbey and the papers of story paper publishers Robert Bonner. In addition to books, the library has collected some unusual dime novel memorabilia, such as an original street sign for the firm Beadle & Adams, extensive records of Erastus Beadle's genealogical investigations and his journal from a trip to Nebraska in 1857.
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The collection consists of a sampling of dime novels from ten novel series. Two series (the Deadwood Dick Library and Beadle's Frontier Series) are complete runs. A few issues have multiple copies. The detective story is the predominant genre in this collection, represented by significant holdings of issues from the Old Sleuth Library, the Nick Carter Library and the Secret Service series. Western adventure and romance stories are ... well-represented in Beadle's Frontier Series. Despite the age and acidic paper of the dime novels, their condition ranges from Fair to Very Good, with the covers of only a few copies ripped, torn, or missing altogether.
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Beadle's Dime Novels