Authors, Artists, and Readers

THE, AUTHORS of the original Dime Novels were among the best of the minor writers of the times. Mrs. Ann Stephens, whose "Malaeska" introduced the series, was at that time already well known as a writer of novels which were published as serials in such magazines as The Ladies' Companion, Graham's Magazine, Peterson's Magazine, Godey's Lady's Book, and so on. She herself was assistant editor of the first three, and founded The Ladies' World and Mrs. Stephens' Illustrated Monthly. Mrs. Metta V. Victor was the wife of Beadle's editor. She was a poet and novelist at fifteen, and later was editor of The Home. She also wrote numerous humorous books, among which "Miss Slimmens' Window," "The Bad Boy's Diary," and "Blunders of a Bashful Man," had wide circulation. Mrs. Mary A. Denison was a well-known novelist who had several plays and some sixty novels to her credit. Edward S. Ellis made his first bow to the public with No. 8 of the Dime Novels. He was a school-teacher, a school principal, and later associate editor of Golden Days and editor of The Boys' Holiday. Still later he became a well-known historian, and wrote some fifty large quarto volumes of history containing tens of thousands of pages. A. J. H. Duganne was a novelist, poet, and journalist on the New York Tribune and Sunday Dispatch. He wrote a book on his experiences as a prisoner for thirteen months in a Confederate prison. N. Colchester Iron was a local historian; John Neal was a famous New England writer; Mrs. Barritt was a poet and later a collaborator with H. H. Bancroft on his "History of the Western States"; C. Dunning Clark was an editor and a local historian; Augustus Comstock ("Roger Starbuck") had been a printer, law student, and sailor. James L. Bowen was a journalist and a celebrated temperance lecturer. Mrs. Ann Emerson Porter, a second cousin of Ralph Waldo Emerson, was a poet and principal of a school for girls. Edward Willett was a lawyer and later a journalist in Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and Brooklyn. He was also editor of the New York Sunday Dispatch. Mayne Reid was a famous Irish novelist, and editor and owner of the short-lived magazine Onward. Bushnell, Ewing, Eyster, Griswold, and several others were journalists. Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes-Smith was a poet and novelist, and for a time was pastor of the Independent Church at Canastota, New York. Albert W. Aiken, his brother George, Frank S. Finn, Dennis O'Sullivan, Bartley Campbell, and Frank Dumont were actors, playwrights, and novelists. George Aiken was the first to dramatize Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and his version of Mrs. Stephens' "The Old Homestead" ran on the stage for years. Dr. William Mason Turner was a well-known Philadelphia physician; Frederick Whittaker was an editor, poet, and novelist; and John H. Whitson was an ordained minister. The majority of the earlier Beadle writers were already well known before they began to write for him. Later, he had perhaps a score of authors who spent most of their time writing for his journals or "libraries," although some of them also wrote occasionally for other publishers.

It may be of interest to know that Louisa M. Alcott⁽¹⁾ wrote dime novels for Loring's Tales of the Day, and for Elliott, Thomes and Talbot's Ten Cent Novelettes, but she did not write for Beadle. Her own experience was similar to that of "Jo" in "Little Women."

The compensation received by authors for Dime Novels and Half-Dime Libraries was usually from $75 to $150, and for the Dime Libraries about double that amount. In some cases much more was paid. Mrs. Stephens received $250 simply for the right to reprint "Malaeska," which had appeared twenty years earlier in The Ladies' Companion. Mayne Reid received $700 for "The White Squaw" and the advertising value of his name, and never less than $600 for his other novels.⁽²⁾ For serial rights an author usually received more than for "libraries."

In Part IV of this book, where the Beadle publications are grouped by authors, it will be seen that many of the writers used one or more pseudonyms,⁽³⁾ but not all of the true names have been found. The object, of course, in using pen names was to avoid the repetition of the same name too often. Such repetitions might lead readers to believe that the novels were hastily written! In some cases when a novel, originally published under a pseudonym, was reprinted, the true name was used. Conversely, if the novel had appeared under the true name, for example in the Saturday Journal or the Banner Weekly, and later came out as a "library," it was often put under a pen name if it immediately followed another story by the same author. By comparing novels, it has been possible, in many cases, to identify pseudonyms. Some names are anagrams, e.g., Malcolm J. Merry, Malcolm J. Errym, J. Malcolm Rymer. Dictionaries of pseudonyms identify a few—occasionally incorrectly—but the dime-novel authors were usually considered too low-brow to qualify for inclusion in these books. Some authors acted as "ghost writers" for certain popular men; thus Prentiss Ingraham wrote the Frank Powell novels and the later novels of Buffalo Bill. Thirty or forty years ago it would have been possible to have traced all of the pseudonyms. It is unfortunate that Orville J. Victor did not write his "Reminiscences." I can name many persons whose "Reminiscences" I would gladly trade for his!

The cover illustrations of the Beadle novels were required to show action. The cuts were relied upon, as much as were the titles, to sell the novels as they were displayed in the newsdealers' windows. This was especially true of the later "libraries." Many of the illustrations were well drawn, especially for the early publications. In the majority of cases, the illustration represents action taking place in the first chapter or two of the story, suggesting that the picture was drawn after reading a minimum of the text—a short-cut method used by the artists of many cloth-covered novels as well. The earlier novels had illustrations drawn especially for the story, and often, when the tale was reprinted in a new edition, a new illustration was made (e.g. Seth Jones in New and Old Friends). Later, to cut down expense, an earlier cut was used for an entirely different story,⁽⁴⁾ the author writing up to the picture and not always successfully. Occasionally a cut was altered, as was Dime Library 361, where a bearded stage driver was given a partial shave to metamorphose his face into that of Buffalo Bill in Dime Library No. 1000. Doubling in the use of cuts was a trick practiced by many other publishers also, and was not confined to cheap publications. For example, twenty of Hablot K. Browne's etchings for G. P. R. James's "The Commissioner" were used in "Samuel Sowerby," † ⁽⁵⁾and the text was written to match the illustrations. Also, some of the cuts in Mark Twain's "Roughing It" had been used previously in Albert Richardson's "Beyond the Mississippi."

For each serial which appeared in the Saturday Journal and the Banner Weekly, there were usually three or more cuts, but when the novel was reprinted in one of the "libraries," generally only one was used. In some cases it had to be engraved in smaller size to fit these broadleaves; in others it was altered by the addition or omission of the words of the title as part of the cut itself, or by cutting down the sides of the picture.

Among the illustrators were J. H. Goater, Henry L. Stephens †⁽⁶⁾, Penfield, Arthur Lumley, John R. Chapin, and H. Fenn. Most of the drawings, however, were made by George G. White,⁽⁷⁾ a prolific artist, who also drew for J. T. Trowbridge's magazine Our Young Folks, New York Weekly, the Christian Herald and the Police Gazette. It is difficult to identify the artists because most of the illustrations in the novels are unsigned.⁽⁸⁾ The engraving of the cuts for the earlier novels was done by the firm of Nathaniel Orr (N. Orr or N. Orr Co.), at 52 John Street, New York, but the cuts for the Saturday Journal and Banner Weekly and the "libraries" were made by John Karst,⁽⁹⁾ the engraver of many of the illustrations in the McGuffey readers.

John Karst (1836 - 1922)

It has often been asked in these later days, "Who read these dime novels?" That would have been an unnecessary question sixty years ago. We ourselves read them, hidden in the back of the doghouse, with the big Newfoundland, Ponto, sitting in the entryway as a screen. But we were in good company, for they were also read by bankers and bootblacks, clergymen and clerks, lawyers and lawbreakers, workmen and tramps, work girls and girls of leisure, soldiers and sailors, President Lincoln and President Wilson, Soapy Sam and Slippery Frank, men and boys, drummers and other train travelers, Henry Ward Beecher, Chief Justice Fuller, and a host of others; in fact by almost everyone except schoolma'ams, pedants, and the illiterate. I presume Mark Twain read them. Said Tom Sawyer:⁽¹⁰⁾

"Who goes there?"

"Tom Sawyer, the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main. Name your names."

"Huck Finn, the Red-Handed, and Joe Harper, the Terror of the Seas."

Tom had furnished these titles from his favorite literature.

The titles are familiar. Ned Buntline wrote "The Black Avenger of the Spanish Main; or. The Fiend of Blood," in 1847, and "The Terror of the Coast" in 1872. These, however, were not printed by Beadle. For evidence that Mark knew the Beadle novels, compare the following excerpt from a novel by Albert W. Aiken, published in 1880, with one from "Huckleberry Finn," published in 1884.⁽¹¹⁾

From Albert W. Aiken's "Richard Talbot of Cinnabar; or, The Brothers of the Red Hand." Begun in the Saturday Journal, No. 530, August 14, 1880.

"He's cracked, sure!" Molly muttered, as she glanced at the handbill which he gave her. It was a fearful and wonderful production, that read as follows:

THEATRE ROYAL
YREKA

NOTE. The Theatre Royal on this occasion will be in the large hall over Joe Smith's store, where can be found the best assortment of goods at popular live and let live prices, north of Frisco.

Come one, come all
And give me a call;
Joe Smith will suit you all
And treat you besides to a 'ball.'

N. B. The best whisky in town—warranted pure bug-juice and no water.

"I had to put that in," interrupted the comedian at this point, "for Smith was a man with no soul and wanted to charge me five dollars for the use of the room, but I fixed him off with that; the poetry caught him heavy, you know, and the 'ball' did the boys, too; for to take a 'ball' is to have a drink, you know. You can't imagine how it runs Smith's business up."

Molly nodded and proceeded:

The eminent son of genius—the rising star that from the broad plains of the South-west has emerged to astonish all the world—the gifted son of Momus, whose performances for 100 nights at the Drury Lane Theatre, London, England, were witnessed, and applauded to the echo, which did applaud again, by all the crowned heads of Europe—the world-famous, world-conquering

J. LYSANDER TUBBS,
THE ARKANSAW COMEDIAN.

In his wonderful performance entitled LAUGH AND BE HAPPY

PROGRAMME.

Scene from Hamlet.