A complete, restored issue of Pulp Fiction from 1887 — 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 · 1887

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 524

1887 · Free to read

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 524 — page 2 of 16 — 2 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 524 — page 3 of 16 — 3 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 524 — page 4 of 16 — 4 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 524 — page 5 of 16 — 5 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 524 — page 6 of 16 — 6 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 524 — page 7 of 16 — 7 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 524 — page 8 of 16 — 8 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 524 — page 9 of 16 — 9 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 524 — page 10 of 16 — 10 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 524 — page 11 of 16 — 11 / 16

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Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 524 — page 15 of 16 — 15 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 524 — page 16 of 16 — 16 / 16

About this issue

This issue features "The Engineer Detective," attributed to J. C. Cowdrick. The serial begins with a locked-room murder mystery aboard the Night Express train of the Mansfield, Cranston & Oakvale Railroad. John Gray, a veteran express messenger, is found shot through the heart in his sealed car, which is locked from the inside. The safe has been robbed of its contents—multiple wax-sealed envelopes torn open and emptied. Detective Spottem theorizes suicide, noting Gray's revolver found beneath his body with one chamber discharged, but superintendent Ralph Raymond, a former fireman nicknamed "Redlight Ralph," insists the honest messenger was murdered. Raymond resolves to clear Gray's name. The narrative then shifts to establishing that Gray's twenty-year-old daughter, Ethel, a traveling actress, is unaware of her father's death, having just arrived in Oakvale by train.

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