Lowly Dime Novel Rises to High Estate

Object of Parents' Wrath, Now They're Collector's Prize

"Who will save her?"

"I will!"

"Who are you?"

"Hawkshaw, the detective!"

"Curses! Foiled again!"

Ah, those were the good old days. And do you remember Nick Carter, Diamond Dick, Old Sleuth, Young King Brady, Frank Reade, Bowery Billy, Frank Merriwell, the Liberty Boys and others of that host of heroes of yesterday's paperback fiction?

Did you ever sneak up into the hayloft or the attic to revel in their fabulous deeds of heroism?

If you are over forty you almost certainly did, and if you aren't you surely have heard of the dime novel eulogized by your dad with a genuine nostalgic touch in his voice.

Dime Novel Collector's Prize

Once upon a time Nick Carter and the rest were considered by careful parents to be a corrupting influence upon the taste as well as the morals of the youth of the land. But today the dime novel is a collector's item, and the Federal Government itself possesses the largest and finest collection extant of the lurid tales which quickened the pulse and widened the eyes of millions of boys who now are men.

In the Library of Congress in Washington, and in its rare book division no less, the whole swashbuckling crew rests in honored glory. And it is the director of the division himself, V. Valta Parma, who has nurtured this collection with as much care as he has lavished upon the massive volumes of ancient days which are a priceless possession of the library.

Full-blooded Americana is the library's amazing array of yellow-back novels and completely illustrative of the vast tonnage of literature consumed so avidly by the youth of a generation and more ago.

Surely you remember some of the titles: Deadwood Dick on Deck. Or Calamity Jane, The Heroine of Whoop-up; Queen Myra; Pioneer Hunters of Kentucky; That Mysterious Affair, or Chick's Wonderful Twelve Hours Work; Rags to Riches; The Fight at Death Ranch; Bowery Billy's Runabout Race; The Amazing Adventure of Death Gulch; There's Gold at Poverty Canyon; The Terrible Thirteen; The Strange Case of Mother Harrigan; and literally thousands more.

In the Old Sleuths and Young and Old King Bradys, Nick and Chick Carters, Deadwood Dicks, Buffalo Bills and the others one can see the G-Men, Dick Tracys, Dan Dunns, Don Winslows of today.

Mr. Parma knows that these crumbling, cheaply printed volumes and sheets he is treasuring weren't considered just the proper thing back when grandfather rode a high wheel bicycle.

He knows as well as you do that most of them were read behind a barn, or up a city alley, or behind a sheltering geography. But what of it? This collection is a lusty foot note to the history of American life as it was lived forty and more years ago. It is part and parcel of the story of our national life. More than that, it is a vivid page out of the memory books of millions of Americans living today.

History of Books is Traced

Who can forget the feel of those brittle pulp pages, the acrid smell of cheap ink, the saffron of the covers, the fine, eye-destroying type? What oldster who ever pored over them breathlessly as a youngster will ever forget the resourcefulness of Nick and the courage of Chick, the tenacity of the Bradys, the unerring aim of Buffalo Bill, the audacity of Diamond Dick, the uprightness of the Merriwells, and the unsullied honesty of Alger's bootblack who always became prosperous and married the banker's daughter?

It is because publishers of this fiction submitted copies for copyright purposes that the Library of Congress has the collection. However, to Mr. Parma goes the credit for realizing the real importance of these items, rescuing them from obscurity, and placing them on display. For years thousands of them were stored in bales in the basement of the library.

One learns that a man named Beadle is the father of the yellow-back novel and the term "yellow journalism" came into general use when this gentleman bound his history-making volumes in paper of that color.

Beadle found a ready market for his product. Such a good one, indeed, that he set up in business in competition to himself under the name of Frank Starr, putting out the same type of literature but in different format.

Then with both Beadle and "Starr" doing well, George Munro, one of Beadle's writers, quit and began his own business on a shoe-string. Quitting Beadle because the latter wouldn't give him a raise in salary, Munro eventually died worth about $10,000,000. Which gives a rough idea of the vast quantity of dime novels sold.

And speaking of "dime" novels, Mr. Parma clears up one of the really great mysteries of life; namely, why a dime novel usually cost just a nickel. About 50 years ago half-dimes were coined and most of the dime novels were really half-dime novels. The half-dime was succeeded by the nickel of today.

And now to get back to Nick Carter in Boston, or The Jewel Robbery:

The terrorized screams of a woman broke the stillness of the night.

The flash of a dagger in the moonlight.

Then two shots in rapid succession.

Nick Carter to the rescue!