Street & Smith's New York Weekly

No Slouch: A Romance of Pike's Peak by Leander P. Richardson dominates this issue of Street & Smith's New York Weekly, a penny paper that serialized sensational fiction for working-class readers. The dramatic engraving shows a man rescuing a woman from a precipitous mountain ledge—a visual promise of the melodramatic thrills within. Such weekly serials, costing mere pennies, delivered gothic adventure, crime, and moral peril to audiences hungry for excitement beyond their daily lives. These stories, often featuring virtuous heroines in distress and daring rescues, established narrative conventions and visual storytelling techniques that would eventually influence the comic book form.