This issue of Beadle's Dime Novels (Vol. V, No. 118, 1879) features the first installment of "Jack Hoyle, the Young Speculator; or, The Road to Fortune" by Edward L. Wheeler, author of the Deadwood Dick series.
The story begins when eighteen-year-old Jack Hoyle, a wealthy but dissolute youth in Lowell, learns from his father's business partner Addison Tremaine that both parents have died and the family is insolvent. The firm's collapse, attributed partly to Jack's profligate spending, leaves Jack with only sixteen cents. Rejected by Miss Lillian Lorne due to his reduced circumstances, Jack vows to rebuild the family fortune and reclaim the mortgaged family estate. He finds unexpected kindness at the rector's cottage, where Bessie Bond, the rector's sixteen-year-old daughter, befriends him warmly. After a night's rest and encouragement, Jack departs town to seek his fortune, beginning with a penny—the first chapter of a rags-to-riches narrative about determined self-improvement and financial redemption.
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About this artifact
- Date
- September 23, 1879
- Rights
- Public domain — free to view, share, and reuse.
- Restoration
- Digitally restored and hosted by ComicBooks.com.
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