A complete, restored issue of Pulp Fiction from 1879 — all 16 pages of painted-cover fiction magazines that launched science fiction, horror, and hardboiled crime, free to page through at ComicBooks.com.

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A complete issue · 16 pages · 1879

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 118

1879 · Free to read

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 118 — page 2 of 16 — 2 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 118 — page 3 of 16 — 3 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 118 — page 4 of 16 — 4 / 16

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Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 118 — page 15 of 16 — 15 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 118 — page 16 of 16 — 16 / 16

About this issue

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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Each page has its own page — the cartoon, who’s in it, and what the satire means.