Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 125

About this issue

This serialized installment of The Blacksmith Outlaw by Harrison Ainsworth, published March 16, 1881, presents the opening chapters of a historical fiction centered on the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. The narrative introduces Wat Tyler, a muscular smith and former archer in Kent, as the chief conspirator organizing peasant resistance against nobility and the poll-tax. His allies include John Ball, a barefooted Franciscan friar preaching equality and property redistribution, and Jack Straw, a noble-born outlaw leading a band of forest robbers who models himself on Robin Hood. The three confederates pledge mutual loyalty through a blood oath. The story establishes the socioeconomic tensions driving the uprising: heavy taxation, brutal tax collectors, serfdom, and the young King Richard II's rapacious court favorites. Chapter II introduces Editha, Tyler's fifteen-year-old daughter, educated at a priory and marked for potential religious life, contrasted with her gossipy mother. The narrative employs detailed physical descriptions and historical exposition to develop its revolutionary themes.