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.

Home › Exhibition › Pulp Fiction › Read

A complete issue · 16 pages · 1887

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 538

1887 · Free to read

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 538 — page 2 of 16 — 2 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 538 — page 3 of 16 — 3 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 538 — page 4 of 16 — 4 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 538 — page 5 of 16 — 5 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 538 — page 6 of 16 — 6 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 538 — page 7 of 16 — 7 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 538 — page 8 of 16 — 8 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 538 — page 9 of 16 — 9 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 538 — page 10 of 16 — 10 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 538 — page 11 of 16 — 11 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 538 — page 12 of 16 — 12 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 538 — page 13 of 16 — 13 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 538 — page 14 of 16 — 14 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 538 — page 15 of 16 — 15 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 538 — page 16 of 16 — 16 / 16

About this issue

The Trail of a Missing Hand: A Story of New York Villainy by T. C. Harbaugh opens this November 15, 1887 issue of Beadle and Adams' weekly publication. The serial features Dodger Dick, a young dock detective, and his new client Eustace Tracy Collins, a well-dressed gentleman of twenty. Collins engages Dick after witnessing a carriage in Central Park dump a severed woman's hand into a lake. Collins recovers it but loses the wrapped object when Jack Pennell, a stevedore, deliberately trips him on the docks. Dick and Collins return to search the scene, where street urchin Frowsy Tad reveals that Kidd Gauntlet discovered something wrapped in paper nearby. The narrative combines detective work with New York street life, introducing working-class dock characters and street orphans as Collins and Dick pursue the mystery of the severed hand and its original owner.

Browse this issue page by page

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