A complete issue · 16 pages · 1895
Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 918
A complete, restored issue of Pulp Fiction from 1895 — all 16 pages of painted-cover fiction magazines that launched science fiction, horror, and hardboiled crime, free to page through at ComicBooks.com.
A complete issue · 16 pages · 1895
"The Trump Dock-Boy" by J.C. Cowdrick begins serialization in this issue. The story follows Dock-Boy Dick, an eighteen-year-old hotel runner on the New York docks, who encounters a mysterious meeting between a young man named Philip Holland (arriving from New Orleans) and an older gentleman, Joseph Belchaine, from New Jersey. Belchaine possesses a severely withered, skeleton-like hand that he keeps concealed. Local superstition holds that anyone who grasps it will die within the year. Philip deliberately shakes the hand to disprove the superstition, alarming Belchaine. After Dick secures their baggage to the Hotel Brimton, the two men engage him to deliver a valuable four-thousand-dollar diamond—a family heirloom destined for Philip's bride. Philip declines to send Dick with the gem, explaining its sentimental significance beyond monetary value, and offers Dick an apology for his uncle's dismissive conduct.
Each page has its own page — the cartoon, who’s in it, and what the satire means.