Beadle's Dime Novels No. 53: Hates and Loves

About this issue

Beadle's Dime Novels No. 55 contains two serials. "Off and On: The 'Ranger's' First Cruise" by John S. Warner is a maritime romance set in 1777, depicting American privateers and naval service during the Revolutionary War when the Continental Congress lacked resources for a formal navy. The narrative centers on a historic military figure and interweaves romantic interest with accounts of heroic sea action. The second serial, "Hates and Loves; or, The Lesson of Four Lives" (author of "Madge Wylde"), opens with a mysterious woman's visit to an old country house on the North River seeking Mr. Anson Meredith. She encounters his eighteen-year-old daughter Mabel, who is struck by the visitor's cryptic, melancholic manner and intimate knowledge of the estate. The woman listens to Mabel sing, tours the house with evident familiarity, and departs with warnings about life's hardships. The serial then shifts to Meredith himself, a middle-aged man consumed by long-concealed troubles and pride, alone in a hotel room consumed by memories.