A complete, restored issue of Pulp Fiction from 1885 — 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 · 1885

Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 389

1885 · Free to read

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About this issue

This issue of Beadle and Adams' weekly, published January 6, 1885, features the continued serialized story of Western adventure and intrigue. "Road Agents!" introduces Gilbert Garrick, a well-dressed New York gentleman bound for the newly established mining camp Lightning Lode. On a mountain stage coach, Garrick encounters Mambrinus Maccaw, a verbose bullwhacker who regales him with tales of the camp's denizens, including the mysterious Kid Glove Kate—a veiled, armed woman frequenting the saloons, and a recently abandoned infant adopted by saloon owner Red Ryan. When moonlight illuminates the coach's interior, Garrick and fellow passengers reveal themselves as armed agents, unmasking Maccaw as a suspected road-agent decoy. Before Garrick can extract information, actual bandits halt the stage. The narrative then shifts to describe Lightning Lode itself: a mining camp nestled in a mountain pass, built around a rich quartz lode discovered by a belated hunter during a dramatic lightning storm.

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