
The Facts:
Dime novels are the pulp-fiction of the American frontier. Often called “yellow-backs” (because of the
early dime novels’ characteristic yellow covers), or “blood and thunder
literature” (due to their sensationalized content) these novelettes were
exceptionally popular from the 1860s until the first World War. Because the books were generally small (the
earliest dime novels were about 6.5 inches by 4.25 inches), they could easily
be stowed in a saddlebag…or in a lady’s handbag. They were printed on the cheapest paper, so
the books themselves are quite rare nowadays.
A dime novel’s cover usually depicted a stirring scene from the book—a
scene like the one on the left.

While dime novels were popular in the expanding United
States, they were also favored in England, though they were considered by some
of the “upper crust” in both countries to be an inferior, vulgar example of
literature. Some historians claim that
the government of the United States encouraged the printing of dime novels
because the books promoted the expanding of the West and painted Western
settlement in a romantic, adventurous (and, as the modern reader might
discover, a totally sensationalized) light. Most dime novels were written for
the adult reader, though a cheaper, more kid-friendly version called a
“nickel-back” arose in the latter end of the 19th century.
Now that you know all about dime novels, I would like to
share a few reviews of some diverse dime novels with you. I generally review books because I love them,
and because I hope that my review will persuade someone to pick up the book I read
and love it as much as I did. These dime
novels, however, are a bit different. I have
been utterly fascinated by all of the dime novels I have read so far, but I
can’t honestly say that I love them in the same way that I love other kinds of fiction. Reading dime novels feels somewhat like
reading for college literature courses, where the purpose is to think
critically about the text. My literary
horizons are a bit broader thanks to these strange, often outrageous
books. So, if you’re looking to read
something entirely different from the norm, give dime novels a try!
Please take note that
the purpose of this gab bag post is to introduce the dime novel genre, so there
are plenty of SPOILERS in the reviews.
On to the reviews!
THE PRAIRIE BRIDE OR, THE SQUATTER’S TRIUMPH, by Mrs. Henry
J. Thomas (first published by Beadle & Adams in 1869; the version I read
was reprinted by The Globe Pequot Press,
2006)
(From the back cover) Tired of her controlling
stepparents, headstrong heiress Annie Howard goes west and encounters a series
of adventures–including a blazing prairie fire, a sinking riverboat, the
kidnapping of her beloved servant, and, of course, romance.
The synopsis on the back cover of this book was written, I
assume, just prior to the book’s reprinting.
The tone of the synopsis shows that you can expect certain constants in
dime novels, including adventure and (“of course”) romance.
THE PRAIRIE BRIDE was the first dime novel I read, and it was
very adventurous and exciting and full of romantic promise…but then the author
gave everything away with some
ultra heavy-handed foreshadowing. In a
nutshell, Annie (the “headstrong heiress”) runs away from home and goes West
with her relatives because her stepfather wants to set her up with his son,
Charlie Norris, whom she has not met.
Later on (but not much later—dime novels are short), a handsome stranger
saves Annie’s life and makes himself indispensible to Annie and to her
relations. Annie resists his advances
(of course—she is the independent heroine, after all) but soon enough, he ends
up proposing marriage to Annie. Once she
accepts, he tells her that the name he has been using is actually his nickname,
and that his real name is Charles Norris.
Gah! The author actually appears to expect the reader to either
not realize the coincidence, just dismiss it, or worse, to giggle along with
Annie, who has planned a silly way of revealing to her new beloved that she and
he were meant for each other all along.
But in the spirit of the synopsis, I just shook my head at
the heavy-handed foreshadowing and said, “of course.”
This book is also very racist, which is, I suppose, to be
expected given the year it was written. It was jarring to read so much
racism, especially the “well-meant” pet names and that kind of thing.
Annie’s black servant, who is also her dear, life-long friend (or so the
author would lead you to believe), is treated more as a favorite mule than a
human being.
However, there was a lot to enjoy about this book, too. It was a very quick read, very fast-paced,
and highly enlightening. I also enjoyed the written dialect, which, while
sometimes ridiculous, was fun to read. I felt like I learned a lot about
dime novels in reading this particular book, which was a bestseller in its
time.
DASHING DIAMOND DICK OR THE TIGERS OF TOMBSTONE, possibly
written by Theodore Dreiser (first published in 1889; the version I read was
found in a Penguin Classic anthology, entitled DASHING DIAMOND DICK AND OTHER
CLASSIC DIME NOVELS, 2007).
(From the introduction) The plot is filled with
melodrama and elements that are typical of many dime novels: a hero with a
mysterious background and nearly superhuman powers, the eternal battle of good
versus evil, a tragic love story with the loss of a loved one, and an ending
that promises more to come as the hero sets out on a trail of vengeance.
This was my favorite of the dime novels I’ve read so far.
It was gripping, I tell you. Gripping! Diamond Dick was the
ultimate hero: handsome, brave, and raising his son all on his own. Ya
gotta root for a guy like that, right? And Tornado Tom, the villain, was
the ultimate villain: handsome, lecherous, and powerful. The first scene
of the novel (well, apart from some serious stage-setting) showed Tornado Tom
brandishing a whip and ordering an unfortunate German man to dance for Tom’s
entertainment. Ooo…villain. Herr Schwauenflegle, whose accent is written
into the text (a commonality in the dime novels I read), was saved from dancing
by the very timely appearance of the stagecoach, which had been set upon by
bandits in ferocious feline costume—The Tigers of Tombstone. The single
occupant of the stage was a young woman, and—oh, I just have to quote
the description of her. It’s too fun:
And then a sudden, breathless hush fell upon that throng
of rough humanity, for out from the semi-darkness in the coach came the
bonniest face that mortal eyes had ever gazed upon.
It was like a vision, framed as it was by the door of the
coach–a thing of unearthly beauty–such a face as some of the old masters saw in
their dreams, and dimly pictured in their waking moments.
Purity sat enthroned on that low, polished brow, where
the hair clustered and coiled back and fell in a cascade of reddish gold; and
truth looked fearlessly out from the clear depths of the hazel eyes.
A brave face it was too albeit that hardly seventeen
summers had blossomed there and left their buds in gleeful dimples on cheeks
and chin.
A smile played like a sunbeam about the pretty mouth as
the girl surveyed the uncouth beings struck dumb by her rare loveliness.
“What is it?” she said, her voice sweet as the music of
the psalms. ”Have we arrived at our destination?”
Isn’t that wonderful and over-the-top and ridiculous?
I love it! And so did Tornado Tom, apparently, because he fell
instantly in lust with her and vowed he’d have her for his bride. But before he could yank her from the
carriage, Diamond Dick showed up with his sharpshooting ten-year-old son and
engaged Tom in a duel–which was then thwarted by one of the tiger-costumed
renegades who had attacked the stagecoach!
Anyhow, much excitement ensues…and then the girl gets shot
and dies.
I read Louisa May Alcott’s thrilling novel, A LONG FATAL LOVE CHASE (written in 1868) several years ago, and don’t ask me why I was
surprised when, at the end, one of the main characters died. You’d think
the FATAL would’ve clued me in. But I digress.
Diamond Dick survived the battle in which his beloved (who
shared the same first name as his first wife–go figure) died, not at the hand
of Tornado Tom, but at the hand of Dick’s jilted lover, the leader of the feline
bandits! Thankfully, Diamond Dick can ride again. And when he eventually
dies, we don’t have to worry, because his son will be Dashing just like his pa.
Really, I loved it. I totally did. Gimme
melodramatic stuff any day of the week, and I’ll laugh myself silly and take loads
of notes.
(From the introduction)
Though the historical setting of
the novel is vague, its events clearly take place when the Six Nations of the
Iroquois still controlled the Mohawk Valley, sparsely settled by Dutch and
English pioneers....Mrs. Stephens...extracts her plot out of history to
concentrate on the fate of her heroine in a sentimental tradition....[Mrs.
Stephens] tells the...story of a “forlorn wanderer” (p. 94), an Indian woman
denigrated by both the Dutch and the Indian populations, “the heart-broken
victim of an unnatural marriage” (p. 163)....Intermarriage was a fact of
frontier history....Effectively avoiding any treatment of intermarriage itself,
Mrs. Stephens concentrates instead on the transcultural price of maternal
devotion: “It was her woman’s destiny,
not the more certain because of her savage origin. Civilization does not always reverse this
mournful picture of womanly self-abnegation” (p. 103).
Known as the first dime novel, MALAESKA was actually a
reprint of a three-part serialized story that originally appeared in The Ladies’ Companion in 1839—twenty-one
years before it was printed as a dime novel.
There were a few changes made for the dime novel debut. “Mrs. Stephens complicated the plot,
amplified the descriptive passages, added epigraphs to the chapters, and
streamlined the punctuation” (Brown 55).
Mrs. Stephens was, at the time of its printing in dime novel form, a
well-known and celebrated writer. In other
words, MALAESKA was the perfect story to introduce the dime novel genre.
Having read several dime novels before I picked up this one,
it came as no surprise to me that the story was exceptionally racist, both in
the writing and in the behavior of the characters. Prejudice is a theme in this book, but it
simply exists—it is not dealt with.
Malaeska, the Indian wife, is portrayed by the author as a simpleton at
best, and an animal at worst. At the
beginning of the book, she speaks in halting English and never refers to
herself in the first person. When angry
or excited, both she and her son (who is also the son of a white man) are
described as animal-like in appearance:
The boy started up—his
eye brightened and his thin nostrils dilated, the savage instincts of his
nature broke out in all his features.
By the end of the book, Malaeska is described as “white in
education, feeling, every thing but color.”
She no longer has an aversion to the word, “I,” and “habits of
refinement had kept her complexion clear and her hair bright.”
The writing was also full of heavy-handed foreshadowing,
melodramatic monologues (people talk to themselves an awful lot in dime
novels), and depressing bits. Lots of
people die. This book is not a happily-ever-after kind of story.
But.
I was absolutely fascinated by the long passages of
landscape description. Setting is very
important in dime novels, and Mrs. Stephens sets up nearly every scene with
copious amounts of description of her characters’ surroundings. To some extent, the natural world, while
affording serenity for her characters (white and Indian), also represents a
descent into “savage” or “wild” or even “un-Godly” realms (Malaeska leaves her
home in the woods and travels to the city in order to accept the white man’s
god, so she can be with her dead husband in his heaven.). That the natural world—particularly the
forest—represents evil was not a new idea in literature when Mrs. Stephens
wrote MALAESKA.
Also, while part of me detested Malaeska, who seemed to me
to be a sniveling weakling (despite her “fierce” looks), I also totally rooted
for her. It has been a long time since
I’ve experienced a character who played to so many of my emotions.
MALAESKA was, by far, the most dramatic of the dime novels I
read. I thought it was very similar in
style and themes to James Fenimore Cooper’s THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS. Heavy stuff.
If you’ve read any dime novels, I’d love to hear what you
thought of them. Also, can you think of any books that might be considered the
dime novels of our day?
Note: If you would like to read more of Kim’s
reviews of dime novels, click here.
5 comments:
Very interesting--thanks! (I've never read any dime novels.)
I haven't read any of these dime novels, but I did read a lot of sentimental novels in graduate school (Hope Leslie, Uncle Tom's Cabin, etc.) and the melodrama aspect--and racism--is present in many of those. I also spent a summer researching "Oriental Tales"--stories printed in the late 18th early 19th century in newspapers about life in the "Orient" (what we'd think of as the Middle East or Turkey), and they were just as full of coincidences, racist descriptions, etc. as these.
But I think stories like these are fascinating because of what they show us about the time period. I'm also fascinated by the perpetual romanticization of the West.
As for contemporary dime novels? I think some historical romance novels still tend to rely heavily on melodrama to spice up the romantic aspect. But I don't think readers have as high a tolerance for melodrama (except maybe on the Hallmark channel) as they used to.
Anyway, this comment is getting long winded, but I really loved this review!
@Laura: Thanks!!!
@Rosalyn: My husband and I were chatting about the romanticism of the West on a long car trip yesterday, and I really believe that the whole "Manifest Destiny" idea is still alive and thriving, especially in the West! It's a fascinating topic. Also, I'm going to try to find some of these "Oriental Tales" you mentioned! They sound like they would go hand-in-hand with my dime novel research.
I haven't ever read a dime novel, but I did direct a good old-fashioned melodrama (under protest) called Foiled by an Innocent Maid. It was hysterical, full of heavy-handed foreshadowing and one-sided characters. By the time we produced it I was in love with the show. There's just something about melodrama that's a lot of fun.
Hmm. I have never read a dime novel, but some of these, especially Alcott's, look very intriguing.
"I want to win a book."
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