A complete, restored issue of Pulp Fiction from 1886 — 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 · 1886

Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 464

1886 · Free to read

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About this issue

Nimble Nick, the Circus Prince by Albert W. Aiken is a serialized adventure novel set in pre-Civil War Kentucky. The story opens in Janesville on the Ohio River, where excitement builds over the arrival of Sharpley's Colossal Moral Silver Show—a struggling small circus traveling from Illinois after a disastrous month-long Kentucky tour. The narrative introduces Eglantine Dunwiddie, a wealthy orphan heiress known for her beauty and independence, mounted on Big Sandy, a temperamental thoroughbred descended from the celebrated racehorse Lexington. When the circus procession's loud band frightens the horse into a runaway, Nicholas Monday—the show's star performer billed as "Nimble Nick"—pursues on his own thoroughbred mare to rescue the rider. The chase culminates at the swollen Ohio River, where Big Sandy suddenly halts, pitching Eglantine into the water. The narrative emphasizes horsemanship, character detail, and dramatic action typical of period dime-novel serials.

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