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. 434

1885 · Free to read

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About this issue

This issue of Beadle and Adams' weekly story paper (November 17, 1906, 5 cents) features "Private Detectives; Playing Three Hands," by E. L. Wheeler, author of the Deadwood Dick and Rosebud Rob novels. Philadelphia private detective James Beak, plagued by lack of business and worn clothes, receives a newsboy named Spider, who brings him a mysterious threatening letter addressed to "Terrol Taylor" demanding a duel at Atlantic City. Soon afterward, wealthy Harrington Hurst arrives, hiring Beak to investigate a house robbery in Germantown. The narrative also introduces Myra Morton, an eighteen-year-old textile worker at Pequa Mills in Philadelphia, whose regular escort Carrol Carter mysteriously fails to meet her, leading her home disappointed. She discovers her mother entertaining a sinister stranger named Mr. Gilbert on a matter allegedly of great importance to her.

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