Dime Novel Romance ~ Julie Lence

Ah, February. The month dedicated to love. Sweethearts gift each other with flowers, candy, and dinner. Students address cute Valentine’s Day cards to hand out to classmates while snacking on anything from cupcakes to heart-shaped candies. Parents may surprise their kiddos with a small trinket, and Hallmark continuously airs romance movies geared to tug at your heartstrings. But neither Hallmark nor the movie industry were the first to draw your attention (and your purse strings) to sweetheart’s month. Books did that, to include the dime novel.

When I think of dime novels, the first thing that comes to mind is a short stand-alone paperback from the 1800’s featuring dashing heroes from the old west. While some of what I imagine is correct, there was more than one story in a dime novel and not all centered around action, adventure, and intrigue. Some were romances. Selling for 10 cents a copy (some for 5 cents) and averaging 100 pages in length, with their brightly illustrated covers and slimness, dime novels were easy to carry and often marketed toward the working class.

While one person isn’t credited with creating the dime novel romance, Erastus and Irwin Beadle were the first to publish the dime romance, under the imprint Beadle’s Dime Novels. Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter was the first title.  Check out this dime novel and a few others below.

Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter by Ann S. Stephens, is often cited as the first American dime novel. Malaeska includes works from authors Charles Garvice and Laura Jean Libbey, to include Only a girl's love and Daisy Brooks; Or, A Perilous Love, respectively Other stories  include The Girl He Loved by Adelaide Stirling and Forrest House by Mary Jane Holmes. 

 

Belles & Beaux: A Home Weekly for Winter Nights and Summer Days. [1874]

Belles & Beaux was one of the very first story papers devoted exclusively to young women and marked publishers Beadle & Adams’ first attempt to reach an all female audience. Launched in  January 1874 for ten cents per copy, it was a mixture of serialized love stories, (usually with two stories running at a time) short stories, poems, and reader’s letters. The first issue featured a poem entitled “Belles and Beaux, Greeting”, and included a large illustration detailing the phases of courtship and marriage.          

 

Waverly Library. “The Only Young Ladies Library of First-Class Copyright Novels Published. Complete and Unabridged. Price but Five Cents Each.” [1879-1886]

The Waverly Library was Beadle & Adams most significant contribution to women’s dime novel romances. This series began in November 1879 and was one of the first sustained and successful attempts to reach a woman’s market in cheap, mass-produced fiction. It promised to cover “the field of Love and Society Romance” with a complete story in each issue. Advertisements promised “Wholesome, Vigorous and Fresh” stories avoiding tedious narrative… nothing but good strong stories of today.  (Source: https://chnm.gmu.edu/dimenovels/wp/romance-series-and-story-papers.html)

 

My favorite romance stories are Double Standards by Judith McNaught and Gentle Rogue by Johanna Lindsay. What are some of your favorite romance stories?