A complete, restored issue of Pulp Fiction from 1889 — 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 · 1889

Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 639

1889 · Free to read

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About this issue

This issue of Beadle and Adams' weekly (Vol. XXV, No. 98, October 1889) contains "The Lame Horse Miner's Quest" by Jo Pierce, a serial Western adventure. The opening chapter introduces Sunrise Saul, a sixteen-year-old newspaper vendor on the K. & Q. Express railroad, who overhears railroad employees discussing systematic robberies. Among the passengers are Abner Plunket, a rural Connecticut deacon carrying $400 for an African missionary society; an elderly James Enonbridge and his young granddaughter Emmie traveling to support Ralph Enonbridge, who faces legal prosecution; and a rough "wild Western man" in the smoking car. The narrative establishes multiple plot threads: the train robberies, Plunket's vulnerability to theft despite his overconfidence, and the family's legal crisis, positioning Saul as a potential observer or participant in unfolding events.

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