Beadle's Dime Library No. 963

# "Mad Bland's Death Leap" and "The Sea Recreant"

This 1897 dime novel issue from Beadle and Adams contains at least two serials by Col. Prentiss Ingraham. "The Sea Recreant" opens the issue with a historical adventure set in colonial New York. Lord Rosser Harcourt, a retired English naval officer, establishes an estate called Graystone on Long Island with his two identical twin sons, Lionel and Vernon, and an enigmatic multilingual tutor named Touton. When the youths reach eighteen, the yacht Frolic is seized by pirates led by a mate planning to capture a newly armed naval schooner called the Destroyer and replace their own crippled pirate vessel, the Sea Shark, commanded by the notorious "Ronaldo the Rover." Young Lionel, taken prisoner aboard the yacht, escapes his bonds, overhears the villains' plot, and slips overboard. Soaked and bruised, he reaches a coastal tavern to alert authorities. The serial continues with the title story also by Ingraham, though its content remains unclear from the available OCR text.