Sensational Spies, Courageous Cowboys, Perfidious Pirates…Oh My!

The first recorded appearance of a “Dime Novel” dates to the years immediately preceding the American Civil War. The combination of lurid tales of “daring-do” with romance and adventure quickly overtook sales of more traditional formats across the nation, as well as in England.

Also known as “Penny Dreadfuls,” these cheaply-produced books were sold by street vendors, or in dry good stores, for a dime or nickel, thereby earning their catchy nicknames. Although each narrative was varied, the standard plot featured a hero or heroine placed in a dramatic situation. Faced with a terrible moral dilemma, the protagonist always chose the path of virtue.

Authors often drew inspiration from current events, such as Wesley Bradshaw’s featured Maud of the Mississippi: Gen’l Grant’s Daring Spy, published at the height of the Civil War. The tale centers around the heroic deeds of the “young and beautiful” Union scout, “Maud,” aka “Pauline D’Estraye,” during the Mississippi Campaign of 1863.

The displayed Tales About Travelers Their Perils, Adventures, and Discoveries (1845) written by Thomas Bingley, was composed for a more juvenile audience, although the author also found inspiration from flamboyant historical events.

A rare 1882 survivor from Beadle’s Boys Library of Sport, Story, and Adventure series is also showcased. Formed in 1860, the publishing house of Beadle and Adams, boasted a catalog of five million dime novels by 1865!

Featured in this display:

• Maud of the Mississippi: Gen’l Grant’s Daring Spy / Wesley Bradshaw (1864)
• Tales About Travelers Their Perils, Adventures, and Discoveries / Thomas Bingley (1845)
• Beadle's boy's library of sport, story and adventure, vol. 3, no. 54 (1882)

“King of the Dime Novel”

All but forgotten today, Prentiss Ingraham (1843-1904) was the most prolific author in Mississippi’s literary history. Perhaps even more astounding than his creative output of six hundred novels and four hundred novelettes was his own history.

Born in Natchez, the only son of clergyman, lawyer, teacher, and popular author, Joseph Holt Ingraham, Prentiss enlisted in the Confederate army soon after secession, afterwards becoming a “soldier of fortune” fighting for hire in Mexico, Greece, Egypt, as well as Cuba.

Beginning in the early 1870s, Ingraham began writing dime novels for New York publishers, Beadle and Adams. During his extensive literary career, Ingraham averaged, “154 words every hour of every day for thirty-four years.” The author often based his novels upon his own military experiences, as well as reworking several of his father’s earlier plots.

Ingraham briefly worked as a press agent for Buffalo Bill’s “Wild West Show.” The personal experience prepared the Mississippian to take over the “Buffalo Bill Series” of dime novels. Eventually, he penned over two hundred such stories, most of which included racial and ethnic stereotypes, as well as gendered language typical of that time period.

Authors, such as Ingraham, wrote primarily for profit, which is reflected in the reduced literary quality of these mass-produced ephemeral publications. However, due to the dime novel’s appeal, a well-known author of that period could be paid up to three hundred dollars for one story, which in today’s currency would exceed ten thousand dollars!

Featured in this display (all by Col. Prentiss Ingraham):

• Buffalo Bill's Wizard Pard (1906)
• Buffalo Bill's Resolution (1908)
• Buffalo Bill's Phantom Hunt (1904)
• Buffalo Bill's Bid for Fame (1907)
• Buffalo Bill's Mine Mystery (1905)
• Buffalo Bill's Hidden Gold (1907)
• Buffalo Bill, Deadshot (1908)
• Buffalo Bill's Friend in Need (1908)
• Buffalo Bill's Iron Nerve (1904)
• Buffalo Bill's Fight for Right (1910)
• Buffalo Bill and Hawkeye (1914)
• Buffalo Bill and Grizzly Dan (1911)
• Buffalo Bill's Impersonator (1911)
• Buffalo Bill in Harness (1915)
• Buffalo Bill and the Talking Statue (1911)
• Buffalo Bill's Panther Fight (1904)
• Buffalo Bill and the Nihilists (1910)

Dime Novelist-Turned-Best-Selling Biblical Author: Joseph Holt Ingraham

A native of Maine, Joseph Holt Ingraham (1809-1860) passed most of his adult life in Mississippi. Both a popular and prolific author, Ingraham was also one of the state’s first early writers of note.

Initially joining the faculty of Washington, Mississippi’s Jefferson College, the young man quickly published a work based upon his travel experiences, The South-West by a Yankee in 1835.

Over the next decade, Ingraham turned to fiction, producing two of his best-known works of the genre, Lafitte: The Pirate of the Gulf and Burton; or the Sieges: A Romance. When demand surged for shorter paperbound novels, the author responded by producing over eighty examples of “proto-dime novels.” Many of these tales featured nautical adventure themes, while others praised the pleasures of country life.

The author later decided to pursue ordination in the Episcopal Church. However, this new vocation did not end his writing career, it merely altered its themes. In 1855, Reverend Ingraham published his religious novel The Prince of the House of David, which sold nearly five million copies worldwide!

Although Ingraham died on the eve of the American Civil War, he wrote a defense of the South and enslavement in his pro-Southern work, The Sunny South (1860), viewed as his critical response to Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Joseph Holt’s son, Prentiss, would follow in his father’s publishing footsteps, later becoming known as the “King of the Dime Novel.”

Featured in this display (all by J. H. Ingraham):

• Edward Austin, or The Hunting Flask (1842)
• The Lady of the Gulf (1852)
• A Romance of the Sunny South, or, Feathers from a Traveller's Wing (Cover title: Southern Belle) (1845)
• The Midshipman, or The Corvette and Brigatine (1844)