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Last update:
April 12, 2005.
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The
American Women's Dime Novel
In
1899, Street & Smith, a key publisher of cheap fiction for women,
featured "The Newsstand's Best Girl" on the cover of their trade newsletter,
Street & Smith's Newstrade Bulletin. Their "best girl" reader
was young, well dressed, and independent. She is depicted wearing
a saucy straw hat piled high with enormous plumes. In her hand she
holds an open copy of Street & Smith's successful women's series,
The Eagle Library. Read more..... |
Willful Gaynell: An Excerpt
"Two
strong arms lifted the slight, trembling form out of the seething
waters up to his throbbing breast, tightening their clasp about her
before he took the perilous leap back in to the water with his clinging
burden. "Little Gay" he whispered hoarsely..."I have come to save
you--because--I love you".......read
more |
Dime
Novel Cover Gallery
Part
of what made dime novels exciting and new, and the bane of middle-class
sensibilities, were the "lurid" cover illustrations. A review
of these illustrations reveals titillating action and women who weren't
always angels on the hearth. |
The Dime Novel in American Life by Charles Harvey The
Atlantic Monthly, 1907
"ARE not more crimes perpetrated
these days in the name of the dime novels than Madame Roland ever
imagined were committed in the name of liberty? It looks that way.
Nearly every sort of misdemeanor into which the fantastic element
enters, from train robbery to house-burning, is laid to them."
Read
more.... |
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