History

Origin of term

It is generally agreed that the term originated with the first book in Beadle & Adam's Beadle's Dime Novel series, Maleaska, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter, by Ann S. Stephens, dated June 9, 1860. The novel was essentially a reprint of Stephens's earlier serial that appeared in the Ladies' Companion magazine in February, March, and April 1839. The dime novels varied in size, even within this first Beadle series, but were roughly 6.5 by 4.25 inches (17 by 10.8 cm), with 100 pages. The first 28 were published without a cover illustration, in a salmon colored paper wrapper, but a woodblock print was added with issue 29, and reprints of the first 28 had an illustration added to the cover. Of course, the books were priced at ten cents.

This series ran for 321 issues, and established almost all the conventions of the genre, from the lurid and outlandish story to the melodramatic double titling that was used right up to the very end in the 1920s. Most of the stories were frontier tales reprinted from the vast backlog of serials in the story papers and other sources,] as well as many originals.

Development of the dime novel

As noted, much of the material for the dime novels came from the storypapers, which were weekly, eight page newspaper-like publications, varying in size from tabloid to a full fledged newspaper format, and usually costing five or six cents. They started in the mid 1850s and were immensely popular, some titles running for over fifty years on a weekly schedule. They are perhaps best described as the television of their day, containing a variety of serial stories and articles, with something aimed at each members of the family, and often illustrated profusely with woodcut illustrations. Popular storypapers included The Saturday Journal, Young Men of America, Golden Weekly, Golden Hours, Good News, Happy Days.

Although the larger part of the stories stood alone, in the late 1880s series characters began to appear and quickly grew in popularity. The original Frank Reade stories first appeared in Boys of New York. Old Sleuth, appearing in The Fireside Companion story paper beginning in 1872, was the first dime novel detective and began the trend away from the western and frontier stories that dominated the story papers and dime novels up to that time. He was the first character to use the word “sleuth” to denote a detective, the word's original definition being that of a bloodhound trained to track. And he also is responsible for the popularity of the use of the word “old” in the names of competing dime novel detectives, such as Old Cap Collier,
 

An example of the "thick book" series,
American Detective Series no. 21,
from the Arthur Westbrook Co..

Perhaps the most confusing of all the various formats that are lumped together under the term dime novel are the so-called “thick-book” series, largely published by Street & Smith, J. S. Ogilvie and Arthur Westbrook. These books were published in series, ran roughly 150-200 pages, and were 4.75 by 7 inches (121 × 180 mm), often with color covers on a higher grade stock. They reprinted multiple stories from the five- and ten-cent weeklies, often slightly rewritten to tie the material together.

All dime novel publishers were canny about repurposing material. but Street & Smith made it more of an art form. They developed the practice of publishing four consecutive, related tales of, for example, Nick Carter, in the weekly magazine, then combining the four stories into one edition of the related thick book series, in this instance, the New Magnet Library. The Frank Merriwell stories appeared in the Medal, New Medal and Merriwell Libraries, Buffalo Bill in the Buffalo Bill Library and Far West Library, and so on. What confuses many dealers and new collectors today is that though the thick books were still in print as late as the 1930s, they carry the original copyright date of the story, often as early as the late nineteenth century, leading some to assume they have original dime novels when the books are only distantly related.

End of the dime novel

In 1896, Frank Munsey had converted his juvenile magazine, The Argosy into a fiction magazine for adults and the first pulp. By the turn of the century, new high-speed printing techniques combined with the cheaper pulp paper allowed him to drop the price from twenty five cents to ten cents, and the magazine really took off. In 1910 Street and Smith converted two of their nickel weeklies, New Tip Top Weekly and Top Notch Magazine, into pulps; in 1915, Nick Carter Stories, itself a replacement for the New Nick Carter Weekly, morphed into Detective Story Magazine, and in 1919, New Buffalo Bill Weekly became Western Story Magazine. Harry Wolff, the successor in interest to the Frank Tousey titles, continued to reprint many of them up into the mid 1920s, most notably Secret Service, Pluck and Luck, Fame and Fortune, and Wild West Weekly. The latter two were purchased by Street & Smith in 1926 and converted into pulp magazines the following year. That effectively ended the reign of the dime novel.

Collections

In the late 1940s to the early 1950s, collecting dime novels became very popular, and prices soared. Albert Johannsen authored an enormous two volume scholarly work, The House of Beadle & Adams, which is exhaustive in its detail. Even at that time the cheap publications were crumbling into dust and becoming hard to find. William J. Benners was another of the early historians of the dime novel. He was also a publisher and author. Edward T. LeBlanc, a longtime editor of the periodical Dime 

Ned Buntline (March 20, c. 1813 – July 16, 1886), was a pseudonym of Edward Zane Carroll Judson (E. Z. C. Judson), an American publisher, journalist, writer and publicist best known for his dime novels and the Colt Buntline Special he is alleged to have commissioned from Colt's Manufacturing Company.

Naval and military experience

Edward Judson was born in Stamford, Delaware County, New York. As a boy, Ned ran away to sea as a cabin-boy, and the next year shipped on board of a man-of-war. When he was thirteen years old, he rescued the crew of a boat that had been run down by a Fulton ferry boat, and received a commission as midshipman in the U.S. Navy from President Van Buren. On being assigned to the “Levant,” he challenged 13 midshipmen to duels who refused to mess with him because he had been a common sailor, and fought the seven who accepted, wounding four, while escaping without a wound himself.

"Buntline" is a nautical term for a rope at the bottom of a square sail. As a seaman, he fought in the Seminole Wars, though he saw little combat. After four years at sea, he resigned. During the Civil War, he served as an enlisted man in the 1st New York Mounted Rifles, although he later claimed to have been chief of scouts among the Indians, with the rank of colonel, and to have received twenty wounds.

Early literary efforts

His first literary efforts began with a story of adventure in the Knickerbocker in 1838. Buntline spent several years in the east starting up newspapers and story papers, only to have most of them fail. An early success that helped launch his fame was a gritty serial story of the Bowery and slums of New York City titled The Mysteries and Miseries of New York. An opinionated man, he strongly advocated nativism and temperance.

Involvement in riots

He became editor of a weekly story paper, called Ned Buntline's Own, in 1848. Through his writing in its columns and his association with New York City's notorious gangs of the early 19th century, he was one of the instigators of the Astor Place Riot which left 23 people dead. In September 1849, he was sentenced to a $250 fine and a year's imprisonment. After his release he devoted himself to writing sensational stories for weekly newspapers, and his income from this source is said to have amounted to $20,000 a year. He was also involved in a nativist riot in St. Louis, which would later come back to haunt him.

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Love at First Sight: or the Daguerreotype, 
a Romantic Story of Real Life by Ned Buntline
(Lerow & Co., Washington St., Boston, ca.1847)

In October 1867, she made her American debut at Banvard's Museum in New York City, performing The Devil's Auction. She became an immense success, and DePol took the show to Boston. During her rise to fame DePol insured her legs for $100,000 after which newspapers claimed Moriacchi was 'more valuable than Kentucky'.

From 1867 though 1872 Giuseppina traveled the United States dancing in various venues with Morlacchi Ballet Troupe which she formed performing before various politicians, dignitaries and the Grand Duke of Russia. On January 6, 1868, the company played at the Theatre Comique and premiered a new type of dance, billed as "...Grand Gallop Can-Can, composed and danced by Mlles. Morlacchi, Blasina, Diani, Ricci, Baretta,... accompanied with cymbals and triangles by the coryphees and corps de ballet." The new dance received an enthusiastic reception.

From then, her fame and success increased, and she played a succession of popular performances. On December 16, 1872, she was billed as a feature attraction in Ned Buntline's western drama, Scouts of the Prairie, with Buffalo Bill Cody and Texas Jack Omohundro. She and Texas Jack fell in love, and were married on August 31, 1873. The couple settled in a country estate in Lowell, Massachusetts and an additional home Leadville, Colorado, though she continued to perform, both with her husband in western dramas, and solo.

Following the death of her husband in 1880 in Leadville, she returned to Lowell and lived quietly with her sister. She died of cancer in 1886, and is buried in Lowell.