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Dime Novels: Collection
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Stanford University has a collection of over 8,000 individual dime novels, and a web site devoted to the subject. The University of South Florida-Tampa Special Collections Department has an extensive collection of nearly 9,000 dime novels, including Frank Tousey's the Frank Reade Library and the Franke Reade Weekly Magazine. Northern Illinois University has put the Johannsen book online. [1]
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The Dime Novel Collection contains nearly forty thousand titles of popular fiction, issued in paperback and sold for ten cents a volume, beginning in 1860. Many of these novels were tales of Indians and pioneers that romanticized the frontier for readers young and old. Russia was the setting for some of these works, such as The Boy Exiles of Siberia; or, The Watch-Dog of Russia, and Nadia, the Russian Spy; or, the Brothers of the Starry Cross.
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The Library of Congress' Dime Novel Collection is one of the largest dime novel collections in the country. It is estimated to contain over 40,000 titles, representing over 280 series. The collection was obtained through copyright deposits. It is not well catalogued, but the excellent staff is well-versed in the collection and willing to work with researchers.
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In the 1990s, few original dime novels exist outside of libraries and personal collections. Moreover, owing largely to their sheer numbers and past popular appeal, dime novels are seldom considered by literary scholars to be good examples of American literature. Their value as historical artifacts... is considerable.
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Many dime novels were microfilmed by UMI as part of a large dime novel collection it prepared about twenty years ago. Without a more extensive survey, the uniqueness and research value of Stanford's collection, while significant, is unclear.
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The dime novel of the 1800s was an early source of entertainment for the masses, providing excitement, romance, and escape to generations of Americans from the cities to the rural areas. Today's researcher in mass media, American history, popular culture, or early American popular literature can now study this cultural phenomenon through a microfilm collection that provides access to what were the radio and television of another era.
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