A complete, restored issue of Pulp Fiction from 1883 — 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 · 1883

Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 308

1883 · Free to read

Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 308 — page 2 of 16 — 2 / 16

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About this issue

This issue of Beadle and Adams' weekly dime novel features "Keno Kit, The Boy Bugler's Pard; or, Dead Shot Dandy's Double," a Texas Border tale by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham. The protagonist is an elegant seventeen-year-old maiden riding toward San Antonio on the prairie. At a spring, she's seized by Bad Ben, a notorious desperado and wanted man, who demands ransom money and jewelry from her wealthy guardians. She negotiates her release by promising to return the next day with five hundred pesos and her valuables. True to her word, she arrives the following afternoon, but when Bad Ben reaches for the money, she produces a revolver and captures him. She binds him with her lariat, intending to deliver him to San Antonio authorities. When he refuses to walk, she ties him to her pony's saddle and drags him toward town, maintaining guard while her horse pulls the struggling captive across the prairie.

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