Frank Reade Library No. 73: Six Weeks in the Clouds

This issue of the Frank Reade Library presents "Six Weeks in the Clouds: Or, Frank Reade, Jr.'s Air-Ship the Thunderbolt of the Skies," credited to "Noname." The serial follows inventor Frank Reade Jr. and his companions Barney (Irish) and Pomp (African American) as they undertake an aerial rescue mission. Sylvester Warden visits Reade requesting assistance locating his daughter Hattie, her fiancé Charles Allen, a minister, and aeronaut Professor Digby Denham, who disappeared while attempting an in-flight marriage ceremony in an experimental balloon. Fearing they remain trapped in the upper atmosphere unable to descend, Warden urges Reade to pursue them. Reade demonstrates his newly completed air-ship, the Thunderbolt of the Skies, featuring rotating propellers for ascent, electrical engines, a pressurized cabin with furnishings, armory with experimental dynamite guns, and navigational equipment. Following newspaper coverage of the romantic incident, Reade accepts the mission, preparing the vessel and crew for departure within twenty-four hours.