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Damsels in Distress, Dastardly Villains, and Romantic Heroes: or, Thrilling Stories of Daring Adventure and Hairbreadth Escapes in Special Collections By Lea Worcester Adventure stories were a magic portal to a world of femmes fatales, rags-to-riches sagas, extraordinary exploits, and happy conclusions for readers in the nineteenth century. While widely regarded as working class and boys' literature, all ages and levels of society read the sensational fiction published in story papers and dime novels.1 Today, the yellowed pages offer insight into the moral sentiments of the period and national concerns about manifest destiny, race, and women’s rights. Commercial, mass produced adventure stories were the result of a trend in publishing that began in the 1830s when lower printing costs and new techniques in marketing created an American market for news and stories.2 The emerging popular press began targeting the potential market of twenty million Americans who wanted news and entertainment. Brother Jonathan, one of the first story papers, was a weekly newspaper with serial stories, short stories, articles, poems, and news that had something for every member of the family.3 The profusely illustrated newspaper’s adventure serials were usually printed a few chapters at a time. The last chapter of each issue ended with the central character in danger. This popular device encouraged the reader to purchase the next installment in order to find out how their champions had escaped disaster once more. Such popular story papers as the Flag of Our Union and New York Ledger soon followed Brother Jonathan into the home. Examples of these popular publications are part of the Newspaper Collection in Special Collections. Story papers echoed nineteenth-century social concerns and their romantic stories were able to challenge conventional genteel values. One subject of public discourse was the right of women to retain control over their property. In the New York Ledger, Craven Le Noir, the dastardly villain in “The Hidden Hand,” exclaims, “Go on, insolent girl, and imagine that you have humbled me! but the tune shall be changed by this day month! for before that time, what ever power the law gives the husband over his wife and her property, shall be mine over you and your possessions.”4
Dime novels, which cost from five to twenty-five cents, were complete novels printed on newsprint with a paper cover. Introduced in the 1860s, they often contained reprints of stories first serialized in story papers. Dime novels in Special Collections contain dramatic stories about the U.S. War with Mexico (1846-1848). The U.S. War with Mexico was the first foreign war covered extensively by U.S. correspondents.5 The popular press quickly found a way to get reports from the battlefields in Mexico and distribute them to a public eager to hear more about Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott. The public’s interest extended to illustrations of battles, sheet music, and sensational fiction about the war. Their fascination with dramatic tales about the war did not wane and publishers continued to print them long after the war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
A glance at the titles on Special Collections’ shelves reveals their attraction to American readers. The Heroine of Tampico; Inez, the Beautiful; and The Female Volunteer hint of melodramatic tales of love and romance. In The Female Volunteer: or, The Life, Wonderful Adventures and Miraculous Escapes of Miss Eliza Allen, A Young Lady of Eastport Maine, as in so many of the thrilling stories, brave Eliza saves her lover from perdition and ruin.6 Within the pages of the novel, Miss Allen puts on male attire, takes a masculine role, and yet, in the inevitable happy conclusion, assumes feminine clothing and temperament as illustrated on the cover. “Captain Ray: The Young Leader of the Forlorn Hope” exemplifies the domestic debate about race and empire.7 Light skinned, aristocratic Spaniards and beautiful señoritas are portrayed as worthy of being saved by American democracy from servitude to the Mexican state and church.8 Negative stereotypes of cruel priests, brutal bandits, and indolent peons hint at the concern expressed by many Americans about the possibility of U.S. citizenship for mixed races if America acquired Mexico. Most early authors wrote novels about Mexico and the war without personal knowledge of the land, people, or events. Labor activist and land reform advocate George Lippard wrote Legends of Mexico in 1847 without traveling west of the Mississippi.9 Eyewitness accounts of men who fought in Mexico and traveled through the territory resulted in novels that were more authentic. In The Rifle Rangers, war veteran and author Captain Mayne Reid offers detailed information about geography and natural history, often slowing the narrative, giving readers access to a genuine western landscape.10 Current interest in popular culture and the role of empire in U.S. history has increased awareness of popular, nineteenth-century fiction. Story papers and dime novels in Special Collections await researchers and visitors with rousing tales. For further information, contact Lea Worcester at 817-272-7580 or lworcester@uta.edu. _______________________ Endnotes 1Michael Denning, Mechanic Accents: Dime Novels and Working-Class Culture in America, rev. ed. (New York: Verso, 1998), 16. 2Daryl Jones, The Dime Novel Western (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1978), 5. 3Jones, The Dime Novel Western, 7. 4Emma D .E. N. Southworth, "The Hidden Hand," New York Ledger, May 7, 1859. 5Rom Reilly, “Role of the Media,” The United States and Mexico at War: Nineteenth-Century Expansionism and Conflict, ed. Donald S. Frazier (New York: MacMillan Reference USA, 1998). 6Eliza Allen Billings, The Female Volunteer; or, The Life, Wonderful Adventures and Miraculous Escapes of Miss Eliza Allen, A Young Lady of Eastport Maine (Cincinnati, OH: Queen City Publishing House, 1851). 7James A. Gordon, “Captain Ray: The Young Leader of the Forlorn Hope,” Pluck and Luck, August 25, 1920. 8Norman D. Smith, “Mexican Stereotypes on Fictional Battlefields: or, Dime Novel Romances of the Mexican War,” Journal of Popular Culture 13, no. 3 (1980), 529. 9Michael L. Burduck, “George Lippard,” Nineteenth-Century American Fiction Writers, ed. Kent P. Ljungquist (Detroit: Gale Group, 1999):173-178, http://www.gale.cengage.com/ (accessed December 14, 2008). 10Mayne Reid, The Rifle Rangers; A Thrilling Story of Daring Adventure and Hairbreadth Escapes During the Mexican War (New York, Hurst & Co., 1899). |
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