Beadle's Dime Dialogues

A TOTAL of forty-one Dime Dialogues was issued at irregular intervals during the thirty-four years which elapsed between the appearance of the first editions of Nos. 1 and 41. The earlier numbers were constantly being reprinted, so that they are found with the later addresses of the publishers. Even after Sullivan took over the establishment they were reprinted, from No. 1 on, with the Ivers imprint. The wrappers or title pages or both show the changes in the firm name and street number. If the later Beadle & Adams reprints, without the dime in the title, are considered distinct varieties, and they should be, one may obtain more than 145, but it is impossible to say exactly how many. I have never seen any with the 92 William Street address, but they may exist. If one counts copies having one address on the title page and a different one on the wrapper, the number of varieties is greatly increased.

The early editions of the first two numbers have buff wrappers. They are 5 7/8 by 3 ¾ inches in size and are very similar in appearance to the early songbooks (Fig. 128), but the later numbers are of the size which later became the standard for many years for the Beadle publications, namely 6 3/8 or 6 ¼ by 4 1/8 or 4 ¼. Nos. 3 and 4 of the larger size have buff wrappers but thereafter the covers are of an orange color although there are shades ranging from pale orange-yellow to deep orange-red (Fig. 129). On the front covers of these later issues there is the heading Beadle's Dime Dialogues, and the imprint of a dime. This cut, however, was removed after September 12, 1894, when it was declared illegal to publish pictures of United States coins. No. 41, therefore, published after that date, and all the late reprints (Fig. 130) show no dime in the heading, which otherwise remains unchanged except for a slight alteration in the scroll work. Below the heading of all of the larger sized booklets is an engraving illustrating one of the dialogues. The number of pages varies between 90 and 96, exclusive of advertisements. As in all of the Beadle publications with the exception of the Handbook of Sports and a few other early booklets, these advertisements are only of other Beadle books. Early editions, of course, are much to be preferred to reprints, for the stereotype plates were used until they were entirely illegible in places. The paper of the early editions, also, is much better than that of the later ones, and a much used copy may be more desirable than a fresh reprint, and it will stand much more handling.

The cover illustrations are good, and in most cases humorous. Many of them, apparently, were drawn by George G. White, although, as usual with this artist, they are not signed. Most of them were engraved by N. Orr. The dialogues themselves are by many different writers and appear to have been brought together from different sources, but very many of them are by the regular Beadle authors, such as Mrs. Metta V. Victor, Edward Willett, "Clara Augusta," Charles Morris, Albert Aiken, Edward Ellis, and Frank S. Finn—the latter writer contributing to most of the volumes. Even Orville J. Victor himself contributed, and there is one dialogue by Mark Twain, apparently an undiscovered first appearance in book form.

In the descriptions below, not all of the reprints of the first five numbers and none of the reprints of the remaining numbers are mentioned. It would have been simply a repetition of addresses to have given those found on the different editions. They may be better visualized by the tabulation given in Table IV in which the numbers indicate the first editions and early reprints, while the crosses indicate later reprints that I happen to have seen. I have made no attempt to collect the various printings, but it seems probable that Beadle & Adams, 98 William Street, printed all back numbers from that address both "with and without the dime on the cover. None has been seen with the 92 William Street address. Reprints by Ivers were also made of all numbers.

The Dialogues were numbered but not named by Beadle, consequently, for convenience in speaking of them, I have named each number in the following list after the title of the dialogue which is illustrated on the front wrapper. The early numbers, which were without illustrations, are named after the cuts which were used on the reprints. A complete list of the contents of all numbers from 1 to 35 appears in the catalogues in Dime Library, no. 530 and Dime Library, no. 543. The contents of Nos. 36 to 41 appear in Banner Weekly, Nos. 332, 381, 424, 474, 526, and 628, respectively.

Numbers indicate original issues.

O is unnumbered.

X indicates copies seen with publishers' imprints later than originals. An examination of more copies will probably show that all numbers were reprinted by Beadle & Adams, 98 William Street, and by M. J. Ivers & Co.

Go to:
	Previous Songbook	Numerical List
	List of all Schoolbooks