W

E REMEMBER-you and I whose childhood was spent among fictive personages other than Rollo and Little Womencertain limp weeklies done in chrome and scarlet, hypodermic to pulse and appetite, but definitely ruinous to the literary digestion. Who wrote them, we never learned; and what necessity inspired their composition, we never cared to determine. To us, simple ownership was the prime consideration; to procure a dime, the dime that would give us title to "Old King Brady and the Bullion Burglars," was the business of our days. Pockets pleasantly heavy with pennies wangled from junk-men in exchange for magnesia bottles-miraculous bottles that turned the sun a cuprous blue when held to the eye -we scudded to a smelly, low-ceiled shop kept by a Shiloh veteran, and tremulously demanded "the one in the window about King Brady." Then, half-paralyzed with dread of discovery by our tattlingest sister, we sidled furtively into the tool-shed, and there on a heap of shavings prostrated ourselves before the Deity of the Dime Novel.

But the Royal Brady, although a solid favorite, was by no means the only denizen of this ten-cent paradise of adventure and spotted intrigue.

An accurate census is now impossible, but even the merest hit-or-miss cataloguing must include such prominent citizens as Stan Steadfast, Seth Jones, Jack Harkaway, Frank and Dick Merriwell, and the perennial Nick Carter. Each hero claimed his coterie, and in the salons of the day -salvaged chicken-coops, parental attics and woodsheds-each tasted a transient supremacy. But somehow we managed to avoid permanent idols, and by eclectic readings snatched from the hands of our literary friends, we achieved a scope unhampered by narrow prejudice. In short, we read them all.

Yet to say we "read" is to create false notions as to our rate of consumption. Who, reminiscent of rainy mornings in the tool-shed, will claim that he did anything but gulp and turn pages? Neither style nor subject-matter lent itself to a coldly dispassionate analysis. If by any chance a page of Meredith or Proust had strayed into a dime thriller, we would have demanded our money back. What we wanted-and got— was physical action pitched to snapping intensity: no psychologizing or stylistic flummery, if you please. Essentially, the dime novel diction of a thousand sweating hacks can be reduced to this formula: "Luke

struck Nick. Nick shot Luke.' Going over the old thrillers now, one finds by actual count that few sentences contain more than eight words, with a fistful of robustious verbs in every line. These verbs (I select at random from "Fancy Frank of Colorado") were usually dart, plunge, leap, swing, shoot and crash. And at the end of every chapter the author, fearful lest his action lag, would season our jaded fancies with a sauce of active-voiced condiments, thus:

"Fancy Frank whipped out his Colt. Still sneering, the gambler called Frank a vile name.

"Frank's trigger finger itched, but he said, 'Get up and we'll shoot square.' [Watch the sentence-pattern, stiff as frozen corduroy.]

"Suddenly, like the treacherous snake he was, the gambler made a false move towards his hip.

"Frank fired twice.

"The gambler pitched forward. He was dead as a stone. Frank had shot him through both lungs."

Not exactly a heart depressant, you'll agree.

22

And deader than the gambler with Frank's bullet through his lung, is the dime novel itself. In company with herdics and antimacassars it molders in an unmarked grave, and not even the wisest may tell of its last hours. Unquestionably, here is a thesis for some unconventional Ph.D. candidate. Such a thesis might undertake to develop (after the suggestion of Professor Blandwell, the Departmental Head) the evolution of the dime novel from the sixteenth century novella through the Gothic horror story of Monk Lewis

or Mrs. Radcliffe not forgetting to indicate, of course, certain eighteenth century ballad-sheets and broadsides, especially those dealing with gallows-confessions and the lives of notorious highwaymen. A good man with an academic pickand-shovel should uncover whole acres of material. Scholarly categories might easily be erected; species labeled and divided into subspecies, for example: I. Frontier Type. (1) Cowboys and Indians, (a) Buffalo Bill, Sitting Bull, General Custer. (2) Trappers and Prospectors, (a) Kit Carson, (b) Fol-de-rol-dol and so on. Oh, there is literary capital in the dime novel, and if some academic entrepreneur wants to pick it up he has my permission to string it out gratis as far as it will go.

But for my own delight I have always preferred always preferred to walk down Third Avenue, New York (weakly resisting pawnshop displays of handcuffs, black-jacks and brass-knuckles that insist on being handled) and enter a dilapidated book-stall on the corner of Eighth Street. Here at various times I have found all the second-hand dime novels in the world, heaped ceiling high, waiting pitifully for buyers at a penny apiece. You pick one up gingerly; dust and brown age have dimmed the eyesearing cover-pigments; perhaps the cover itself is missing. No matter; you pick one up, making a mental note: "wash hands thoroughly before dinner." And promptly you forget both dust and dinner, for here are spread before you the friends of your youth: "Buffalo Bill's Last Shot, "Night-Hawk Kit," "Iron-Armed Abe" and "Fred Fearnot's Winning Spurt." Burrow deeper into the pile

and you pull out "Velvet Foot, the Indian Detective," "Captain Mystery,” and “Arizona Joe," subtitled "The Boy Pard of Texas Jack." How the titles renew memories of truant days and coal-oil nights, dustier than the yellowed volumes themselves.

Industrious boring into the mass may uncover a stray copy of "Golden Hours," a sixteen page, five cent magazine published in New York every Saturday during the seventies and eighties by a George Munro of Vandewater Street. This yellowcovered, weirdly illustrated magazine contained some of the grisliest tales ever told in English. I vaguely remember one in which an ignis fatuus in the form of a human skeleton led the hero and his friends through a haunted everglade in search of gold. This tale was unraveled by A. W. Aiken, a noble hack who for fifteen years wrote three novels a month. When under pressure, Aiken could write a thirtythousand word novel in a week. Many authors thought five thousand words a day was a leisurely pace. Colonel Prentiss Ingraham once turned out a complete novel in twenty-four hours. (Shades of Flaubert! Why all this racket about the mot juste?)

But no search, however diligent, will uncover one of the original Beadle books, first published by Erastus Beadle in 1860. Beadle is the Watt and the Magellan of the dime novel. His ideas blew the lid off the literary kettle, and his papercovered novels circumnavigated the reading globe. Beadle was publishing almanacs and game-books in and game-books in Buffalo when he conceived the notion

of dime literature. He believed that he could get authors to grind out thirty-thousand word novels (at a half-cent a word), print them cheaply, and dispose of them in bales to the youth of a nation who were languishing for reading matter that was at once hectic and inexpensive. (“McGuffey's Reader" and "Sandford and Merton" were, after all, pretty sorry provender.) So the enterprising Mr. Beadle established himself at 141 Williams Street, New York, and gathered about his whirring presses the most competent and entertaining school of feuilletonistes that ever ground out copy. Even the Dumas factory could not have competed in volume and financial success with Beadle's marvelous fiction-mill.

Orville J. Victor was general editor of the Beadle Dime Pocket Library, as the series was called. And from the accounts that filter down to us, Orville Victor must have been a remarkable fellow. He had already done some excellent journalistic editing before joining the Beadle staff, and was known to American letters as one of the leading contributors to "Graham's Magazine." For the first ten years of Victor's editorship a high standard of literary excellence was maintained. Lincoln, Seward and Henry Ward Beecher were among Beadle's most illustrious patrons; the Federal Government shipped Beadle's novels by the train-load to the armies of the North. "As editor," said Victor to a friend, "I sought the best work of the best writers. I laid down strict rules of morality, probability and action that all Beadle authors were bound to observe. . American frontier life at that time was a colorful arena of warring

Indian tribes and white settlers. We tried to get the flavor of American life into the 'Dime Pocket Library,' and I think we succeeded in doing so." The exploits of Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone and Kit Carson were transmuted, under Victor's direction, into stirring narratives that bristled with ambushed attacks and counter-attacks, forest stratagems and fancy shootings, all strung on the slender thread of a not too probable plot. Tolerable standards of literary dignity were maintained until the rising tide of competition swept away Victor's idealism and a huge portion of Beadle's profits.

"Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter" was the first of the Beadle novels. It was written by Mrs. Ann S. Stephens, and was published in June, 1860. Mrs. Stephens, who was as well known in her day as, let us say, Dorothy Canfield is in ours, received $250 for the story. Although “Malaeska” had an unhappy ending, it was immensely popular; its total sale was 65,000 copies. Other best sellers of 1860 were Harry Cavendish's "Privateer Cruise," Colonel Duganne's "Massassoit's Daughter" and-by far the most popular of the earliest "dimes" -"Maum Guinea and Her Plantation Children."

"It is as absorbing as 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,"" is Lincoln's reported opinion of "Maum Guinea," which was written by Metta Victor, wife of the Beadle editor. It is a tale of slave life, abounding in simple pathos, rich with local color. In its English edition alone-all Beadle books were republished in London till 1866-it ran up to 100,000 copies.

Probably half a Probably half a million people bought the book in America. Henry Ward Beecher praised it, called it “a shot in the right direction." Northern propagandists in England found it valuable in dissipating British prejudices. And for this pedestrian masterpiece Mrs. Victor received $150. No royalties were collected by the authors of the dime novels. Beadle bought the manuscript outright, paid cash down, and took his chances with it. The "chance" was a hundred to one shot, with the odds in favor of the publisher. Beadle made so much money that a good-natured rival remarked, "I'd rather have Rastus Beadle's printing-plant than a license to coin lead dollars."

Beadle's greatest product was Edward S. Ellis. Successful as other authors were, their laurels look pretty rusty beside the perpetual green of Ellis's fame. As a youth of twenty he entered Beadle's office and timidly laid a long-hand manuscript on Mr. Victor's desk. It was a great moment in American literature and a still greater one in the annals of Beadleism. The manuscript, written when Ellis was eighteen years old, was the story of "Seth Jones, or the Captive of the Frontier." It was a complete and immediate best seller, one of the hottest money-makers ever struck off an American press. There were 750,000 copies sold in America; it was translated into ten languages; and only recently a Siamese student told me that "Seth Jones" can be found in Bangkok book-stores, between "Robinson Crusoe" and "Treasure Island."

"How de do? How de do? Ain't frightened, I hope. It's nobody but me, Seth Jones of New Hampshire."