A complete issue · 32 pages · 1891
Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 670
A complete, restored issue of Pulp Fiction from 1891 — all 32 pages of painted-cover fiction magazines that launched science fiction, horror, and hardboiled crime, free to page through at ComicBooks.com.
A complete issue · 32 pages · 1891
This installment features the opening chapters of a serial by Albert W. Aiken. "A Daring Deed" depicts a dramatic fire rescue in New York's Turtle Bay district when a young girl becomes trapped on the roof of a burning wooden building. A skilled, resourceful young man named Strong climbs a telegraph pole and constructs a makeshift scantling bridge to reach her, earning the crowd's nickname "Lightweight." The girl vanishes mysteriously after rescue. In "Bookingham's Proposal," the elderly property owner reveals he locked the building that very afternoon—making the girl's presence unexplained. Bookingham, a prosperous merchant, offers Strong employment as his personal investigator, believing the fire was sabotage by a secret enemy and that the mysterious girl holds the key to identifying the perpetrator. Strong accepts, having returned to New York from foreign adventure with some modest means and a temperament ill-suited to ordinary life.
Each page has its own page — the cartoon, who’s in it, and what the satire means.