Review: Dime Novel Cover Series

An interesting new series of works I recently discovered is Joseph Lovece‘s “Dime Novel Cover Series.” The series makes use of various “dime novel” works as a starting point.

Dime novels were the late 1800s forerunners of the pulp magazines. They included the various “story papers,” which were often reprinted as cheap, large format “paperbacks” and the like. Some had various continuing characters: western heroes, various detectives like Nick Carter, and the various boy inventors like Frank Reade Jr. Such works are not limited to the United States, and various European countries had similar works.

So far, the series consists of the following:

• “Denver Doll, the Detective Queen”
• “Six Weeks in the Moon”
• “Hank Hound, the Crescent City Detective”
• “Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper”
• “Hercules, the Dumb Destroyer”
• “Night Hawk”
• “Sexton Blake, the Mission Millionaire”
• “Lord Lister, Known as Raffles, Master Thief”
• “The Witch Hunter’s Wards”

I only have “Six Weeks in the Moon.” I do plan on getting some of the others and will give a more detailed review of those I do in the future, but here is an overview of each volume.

Denver Doll is a western female detective. Joseph has used her in his original “Steam Man of the West” series. I am not certain if she was a series character or had only one story. “Denver Doll, the Detective Queen” has two stories. One is a reprint of the original Denver Doll novel from 1882, and the second is Joseph’s rewritten version.

“Six Weeks in the Moon” is similar to the various “boy inventor” stories, but appears to be a one-off story. Published as by “Noname,” which was used by stories by various authors, it is assumed it was written by Luis Senarens who also wrote the Frank Reade Jr. and Jack Wright series. The original novel is included in the volume, along with a re-written version. Because of problems with the story — in particular with actions of the two main characters — a solution had to be created else the story would have to be totally redone. I’ll leave it to other readers to decide if the solution was the best answer. I thought it was. I have to assume that similar tactics were done with other works in this series.

The story tells of two boys who, along with their professor, figure out a way to travel to the Moon in a vehicle of their own invention. Instead of using rockets, it’s powered by magnetism, which allows the vehicle to be pulled effortlessly to the Moon and back. They find a Moon that has an atmosphere, with animal life similar to dinosaurs that live in, under, and around seas with red water. They soon discover the inhabitants of the Moon, who are seven-foot blue-skinned humanoids with ape-like faces. They have adventures exploring the Moon, meeting with these inhabitants, and have other adventures before returning to the Earth.

“Hank Hound” concerns a New Orleans detective helping a family besieged by a gang known as The Owls. Like the others, it includes the original and a re-written version.

“Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper” is an interesting story. This is not a story by Conan Doyle, but an unauthorized pastiche that was written in Germany. I had mentioned this in my posting about Harry Dickson, as this is the origin of this character. This story was one of the early ones before Sherlock Holmes was renamed Harry Dickson, but he is helped by Harry Taxon. This story was translated in Spanish, and it is this Spanish translation that is the basis for this version. This volume contains Joseph’s translation of the story, as well as the Spanish version.

Interestingly, Black Coat Press, which has been publishing Harry Dickson stories, is planning on publishing a translation of the French version of the story very soon. It will be interesting to compare the two.

“Hercules, the Dumb Destroyer” is another western from the dime novels, and has a trio of heroes who patrol the West and foil the plans of the villain Black Diablo: the title character, mute Hercules, the Dumb Destroyer; the young Dare Devil Dick; and border detective Skylark Sam (who has a batwing-like parachute he glides to the Earth with). As with others, we get the original novel and Joseph’s revision.

Night Hawk is an English character, a rich playboy who creates a flying suit with wings and fights evil, similar to DC Comics Hawkman. This volume, “Night Hawk,” has four original stories from the 1930s, along with four new ones.

Sexton Blake is another English character, a popular one that started out as another Holmes pastiche who became a more original character over time. There have been several collections of original stories made available in the U.S. recently and I hope to write a posting on him soon. “Sexton Blake, the Missing Millionaire” is apparently the first Sexton Blake story, and we get a reprint of it, along with a revision of it.

Lord Lister is very popular German pulp character. He is also Raffles, Master Thief, and has various adventures in the style of A.J. Raffles (who seems to have inspired the name of the character), or other gentleman-thieves who fight bad guys. Despite being popular throughout Europe, he’s never been translated to English. So we get a translation in “Lord Lister, Known As Raffles, Master Thief,” along with the story in its original German.

“The Witch Hunter’s Wards” is set in Puritan Salem. A witch hunter accuses his wards of being witches in a scheme to grab their fortune. Will he succeed or will they turn the tables. As with the others, we get the original story and a modern revision.

Plans are to reprint the first Jack Wright, Boy Inventor story in volume 10. Jack Wright was another Edisonade character. Volume 11 is a story of Frank and Jesse James as kids, here being detectives.

Please check these out.