A complete, restored issue of Pulp Fiction from 1890 — 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 · 1890

Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 654

1890 · Free to read

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About this issue

This dime novel by Ed. L. Wheeler concerns Don Dare (alias Hurricane Sam), a mysterious stranger who arrives in Smugglers' Harbor, a Gulf Coast town where residents pose as fishermen while smuggling liquor, silks, cigars, and other goods from Cuba and Mexico in defiance of U.S. revenue laws. The settlement's boss, Cast-Iron Jim Oaks, operates the tavern "Guzzler's Glory" and commands the smuggling operation. When Dare repeatedly enters and leaves the tavern over successive nights, Oaks's gang grows suspicious. The elderly prophet Suke, a physically deformed figure respected for his accurate predictions, claims to have dreamed that Dare is a federal detective and that a smuggling vessel called the Shark will arrive tomorrow with a wealthy woman and riches destined for the town's crippled resident, Hiram May. Oaks declares Dare must be killed that night. The Kicker, a cowardly gang member, refuses the assignment, claiming insufficient nerve for murder.

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