Beadle's Dime Novels No. 17

About this issue

This 1861 Beadle and Company semi-monthly issue contains two complete serials. "Nat Todd; or, The Fate of the Sioux Captive" by Edward S. Ellis is a frontier adventure novel featuring the character Nat Todd from the earlier serial "Bill Biddon." Todd pursues a white girl captured by the Sioux in childhood, tracing her across the Oregon Trail and into the remote Northwest. He encounters the trapper Bill Biddon, who also seeks the captive; together they pursue their quest successfully, though Biddon dies in the attempt. "Madge Wylde: Young Man's Ward; or, Lights and Shadows of Orphan Life," by an unnamed author, is a domestic narrative set in Paradise Square, New York's degraded tenement district. The opening chapters establish the protagonist's childhood in poverty: motherless and raised by the drunken old woman Nan Briggs, young Madge works as a street sweeper with her distinctive long black hair. When a well-dressed young man named Amory encounters her after she saves him from a runaway horse accident, her circumstances begin to change.