A popular form of literary entertainment in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, dime novels were works of sensational fiction published in paper-covered booklets, issued at regular intervals, and priced at five to ten cents. Profitable mainstays of the American publishing industry for many years, dime novels gradually waned as pulp magazine consumption increased, and by 1915, motion pictures had replaced dime novels as inexpensive forms of entertainment. Since that time, dime novels have become significant resources for examining the development of American popular culture in that they exemplify early printing methods, serve as rudimentary forms of genre fiction, and reflect aspects of the social history of the United States.

Published in four basic formats between 1860 and 1915, dime novels usually possessed pictorial covers with black-and-white or colored illustrations, ranged in size from four by six inches to eight by 12 inches, and varied in length from 32 to...