Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 377

This issue of Beadle's Dime Novels presents the serial "Bonodel, the Boy Rover; Or, The Flagless Schooner" by Col. Prentiss Ingraham, author of maritime adventure tales. The narrative unfolds through three interlocking backstories. First, a man abandons his tattooed wife and child on a savage island to escape on a passing ship. Second, this deserter, now living in New Orleans, murders his friend Bonodel to win his wife, then systematically destroys Bonodel's family through revenge; the widowed mother dies and her young son Mark becomes a homeless wanderer. Third, the deserter, revealed as Don Rudolpho Ramon, has established himself in San Augustine as a wealthy expatriate. Facing exposure from both the tattooed woman (the "Witch of the Isle") and young Bonodel seeking revenge, Ramon abandons his luxurious life to enter a monastery. The serial introduces the protagonist Mark Bonodel commanding a swift, flagless armed schooner—an American-built vessel with four pivot guns, crewed by fifty men—cruising the Gulf of Mexico in search of his missing sister.