Dime novels were popular back in the late 19th and early 20th century United States when it was first published around the start of the American Civil War. It was also popular in England, where it is known as "penny dreadfuls".
Dime novels were a term used for popular fiction that were published in series of cheap paper bound editions - including story papers, 5 cent and 10 cent weeklies, thick book reprints, as well as early pulp magazines. They were mainly sold by the news stands on every street corner as well as the local dry goods stores. Just as its own name implies, dime novels were inexpensive, and costed only 5 cents to 10 cents per book.
Dime novels were short with only a few hundred or less pages, which also made them lightweight and convenient to carry around. They were simple in design; bounded by inexpensive paper with an attractive bright illustrated cover. Due to its low cost in publishing and price, the target audience were mainly the poor and uneducated lower class citizens, hence, the stories were created to be simple and straight forward in mind, with formulaic plots and character development.
Take a look at the sample pages taken from just some of these books in the collection.
All of the book titles that are included in this DVD are listed as follows:
Black Bess, or, the Knight of the Road by Edward Viles, Volume 1 1866
Black Bess, or, the Knight of the Road by Edward Viles, Volume 2 1866
Black Bess, or, the Knight of the Road by Edward Viles, Volume 3 1866
Blueskin - a Romance of the Last Century by Edward Viles, Volume 1 1866
Blueskin - a Romance of the Last Century by Edward Viles, Volume 2 1866
Gentleman Jack - Life on the Road by Elizabeth Caroline Grey, Volume 1 1852
Gentleman Jack - Life on the Road by Elizabeth Caroline Grey, Volume 2 1852
Gentleman Jack - Life on the Road by Elizabeth Caroline Grey, Volume 3 1852
Barney Blake the Boy Privateer 1897
The Yankee Rajah - the Fate of Black Shereef 1881
Adventures of Dick Onslow among the Red Indians by William Kingston 1899
Dashing Diamond Dick - The Tigers of Tombstone 1898 by WB Lawson
Wild Bill's Last Trail 1886 (Diamond Dick)
Frank James on the Trail 1882
The Old English Baron, a Gothic Story and The Castle of Otranto, a Gothic story (1883)
Wagner the WehrWolf by George Reynold 1846
Varney the Vampire 1847
The life of Richard Palmer better known as Dick Turpin the Notorious Highwayman and Robber by Henry Downs Miles 1839
A Defence of Nonsense (A Defence of Penny Dreadfuls) by Gilbert Keith Chesterton 1911
Rosario The Female Monk by Monk Lewis 1891
The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis 1907
Rookwood by William Harrison Ainsworth 1834
Life and Adventures of Richard Turpin, a most notorious highwayman by WS Fortey 1860
Tales of Wonder by MG Lewis 1801
The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe 1836
The Romance of the Forest by Ann Radcliffe 1847
The Boys of England - a Young Man's Journal 1870 (over 800 pages of tales)
Deadwood Dick as Detective 1885
Scalping Jack the Scout: A Terrible Twenty-five Cent Dime Novel By Bricktop 1872
The Dime Novel Detective by Wm Organ 1910
Blood and Thunders or, Dime novels of the 80's and 90's by Floyd Beagle 1920
Wild Bill's Sable Pard by Burt Standish
Lois the Witch by Elizabeth Gaskell (also included: "The Doom of the Griffiths") 1861
Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu 1899
In a Glass Darkly, Volume 1 by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu 1872
In a Glass Darkly, Volume 2 by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu 1872
In a Glass Darkly, Volume 3 by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu 1872
Dracula by Bram Stoker 1897
Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin, Volume 1, 1820
Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin, Volume 2, 1820
Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin, Volume 3, 1820
Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin, Volume 4, 1820
Trilby by George du Maurier 1894
Marvels and Mysteries by Richard Marsh 1900
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 1 1909
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 2 1909
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 3 1909 (Can Such Things Be?)
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 4 1909 (Shapes of Clay)
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 5 1909 (Black Beetles in Amber)
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 6 1909 (The Monk and the Hangmans Daughter)
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 7 1909 (The Devil's Dictionary)
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 1909 (Negligible Tales)
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 9 1909 (Tangential Views)
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 10 1909
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 11 1909
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 12 1909 (Kings of Beasts)
The Tale of Terror - A Study of the Gothic Romance by Edith Birkhead 1921
The Ghost-Seer by Frederick Schiller 1872
The Devil's Elixir by E.T.A. Hoffman, Volume 1 1829
The Devil's Elixir by E.T.A. Hoffman, Volume 2 1829
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux 1911
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde 1891
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James 1898
The Beetle by Richard Marsh 1917
Diamond Dick Jr's call down - King of the Silver Box 1896
Buffalo Bill the Buckskin king 1880
Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 1886